1 Kings 6:6-8

Lexham English Bible

⁶ The lower structure was five cubits in its width and the middle was six cubits in its width and the third was seven cubits in its width, for he made niches for the temple^[a] all around to the outside, so that beams would not attach to the walls of the temple.^{[b] 7} Now while the temple^[c] was being built, it was built with stones finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or stone shaping tool or any instrument of iron was heard in the temple^[d] as it was being built. ⁸ The doorway of the side room in the middle of the side of the temple^[e] was on the south; they went up with a stairway to the middle and from the middle to the third floor.