1 Solomon had a bronze altar made that was nine metres square and four and a half metres high.
2 He also gave orders to make a large metal bowl called the Sea. It was four and a half metres across, just over two metres deep, and thirteen and a half metres around.
3 Its outer edge was decorated with two rows of carvings of bulls, ten bulls to about every forty-five centimetres, all made from the same piece of metal as the bowl.
4 The bowl itself sat on top of twelve bronze bulls, with three bulls facing outwards in each of four directions.
5 The sides of the bowl were seventy-five millimetres thick, and its rim was in the shape of a cup that curved outwards like flower petals. The bowl held about sixty thousand litres.
6 He also made ten small bowls and put five on each side of the large bowl. The small bowls were used to wash the animals that were burnt on the altar as sacrifices, and the priests used the water in the large bowl to wash their hands.