3 All the people of Israel assembled before the king during the festival of the seventh month.
4 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark;
5 and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting with all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. The levitical priests brought them up.
6 King Solomon and the entire community of Israel, gathered for the occasion before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen too many to number or count.
7 The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place: the inner sanctuary of the house, the holy of holies, beneath the wings of the cherubim.
8 The cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the ark, covering the ark and its poles from above.
9 The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary. (They cannot be seen from outside, but they remain there to this day.)