The Daily Audio Bible

The Gates Leading to the Inner Courtyard

²⁸ We then went into the inner courtyard, through the gate on the south side of the temple. The man measured the gate, and it was the same size as the gates in the outer wall. ^29-30 In fact, everything along the passageway was also the same size, including the guardrooms, the walls separating them, the entrance room at the far end, and the windows. This gate, like the others, was 25 meters long and 12.5 meters wide. ³¹ The entrance room of this gate faced the outer courtyard, and carvings of palm trees decorated the walls of the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.

³² Next, we went through the east gate to the inner courtyard. The man measured this gate, and it was the same size as the others. ³³ The guardrooms, the walls separating them, and its entrance room had the same measurements as the other gates. The guardrooms and the entrance room had windows, and the gate was 25 meters long and 12.5 meters wide. ³⁴ The entrance room faced the outer courtyard, and the walls in the passageway were decorated with carvings of palm trees. Eight steps also led up to this gate.

³⁵ Then the man took me to the north gate. He measured it, and it was the same size as the others, ³⁶ including the guardrooms, the walls separating them, and the entrance room. There were also windows in this gate. It was 25 meters long and 12.5 meters wide, ³⁷ and like the other inner gates, its entrance room faced the outer courtyard, and its walls were decorated with carvings of palm trees. Eight steps also led up to this gate.

The Rooms for Sacrificing Animals

^38-39 Inside the entrance room of the north gate, I saw four tables, two on each side of the room, where the animals to be sacrificed were killed. Just outside^[a] this room was a small building used for washing the animals before they were offered as sacrifices to please the Lord^[b] or sacrifices for sin^[c] or sacrifices to make things right.^{[d] 40} Four more tables were in the outer courtyard, two on each side of the steps leading into the entrance room. ⁴¹ So there was a total of eight tables, four inside and four outside, where the animals were killed, ^42-43 and where the meat was placed until it was sacrificed on the altar.^[e]

Next to the tables in the entrance room were four stone tables 50 centimeters high and 75 centimeters square; the equipment used for killing the animals was kept on top of these tables. All around the walls of this room was a 75-millimeter shelf.^[f]

The Rooms Belonging to the Priests

⁴⁴ The man then took me to the inner courtyard, where I saw two buildings, one beside the inner gate on the north and the other beside the inner gate on the south.^{[g] 45} He said, “The building beside the north gate belongs to the priests who serve in the temple, ⁴⁶ and the building beside the south gate belongs to those who serve at the altar. All of them are descendants of Zadok and are the only Levites allowed to serve as the Lord's priests.”

The Inner Courtyard and the Temple

⁴⁷ Now the man measured the inner courtyard; it was 50 meters square. I also saw an altar in front of the temple.

⁴⁸ We walked to the porch of the temple, and the man measured the doorway of the porch: It was seven meters long,^[h] two and a half meters wide, and the distance from the doorway to the wall on either side was one and a half meters. ⁴⁹ The porch itself was ten meters by six^[i] meters, with steps^[j] leading up to it. There was a column on each side of these steps.

41 Next we went into the main room of the temple. The man measured the doorway of this room: It was 3 meters wide,^{[k] 2} five meters long, and the distance from the doorway to the wall on either side was two and a half meters. The main room itself was 20 meters by 10 meters.

^3-4 Then the man walked to the far end of the temple's main room and said, “Beyond this doorway is the most holy place.” He first measured the doorway: It was one meter wide, 3 meters long, and the distance from the doorway to the wall on either side was 3.5 meters. Then he measured the most holy place, and it was 10 meters square.

The Storage Rooms of the Temple

⁵ The man measured the wall of the temple, and it was three meters thick. Storage rooms two meters wide were built against the outside of the wall. ⁶ There were three levels of rooms, with 30 rooms on each level, and they rested on ledges that were attached to the temple walls, so that nothing was built into the walls. ⁷ The walls of the temple were thicker at the bottom than at the top, which meant that the storage rooms on the top level were wider than those on the bottom level.^[l] Steps led from the bottom level, through the middle level, and into the top level.

⁸ The temple rested on a stone base three meters high, which also served as the foundation for the storage rooms. ⁹ The outside walls of the storage rooms were two and a half meters thick; there was nothing between these walls ¹⁰ and the nearest buildings ten meters away. ¹¹ One door led into the storage rooms on the north side of the temple, and another door led to those on the south side. The stone base extended two and a half meters beyond the outside wall of the storage rooms.

The West Building and the Measurements of the Temple

¹² I noticed another building: It faced the west end of the temple and was 35 meters wide, 45 meters long, and had walls over 2.5 meters thick.

¹³ The man measured the length of the temple, and it was 50 meters. He then measured from the back wall of the temple, across the open space behind the temple, to the back wall of the west building; it was 50 meters. ¹⁴ The distance across the front of the temple, including the open space on either side, was also 50 meters.

¹⁵ Finally, the man measured the length of the west building, including the side rooms on each end, and it was also 50 meters.

The Inside of the Temple

The inside walls of the temple's porch and main room^{[m] 16} were paneled with wood all the way from the floor to the windows, while the doorways, the small windows, and the three side rooms were trimmed in wood.^{[n] 17} The paneling stopped just above the doorway. These walls were decorated^{[o] 18-20} with carvings of winged creatures and had a carving of a palm tree between the creatures. Each winged creature had two faces: A human face looking at the palm tree on one side, and a lion's face looking at the palm tree on the other side. These designs were carved into the paneling all the way around the two rooms.

²¹ The doorframe to the temple's main room was in the shape of a rectangle.

The Wooden Altar

In front of the doorway to the most holy place was something that looked like ²² a wooden altar. It was one and a half meters high and one meter square,^[p] and its corners, its base,^[q] and its sides were made of wood. The man said, “This is a reminder that the Lord is constantly watching over his temple.”

The Doors in the Temple

²³ Both the doorway to the main room of the temple and the doorway to the most holy place had two doors, ²⁴ and each door had two sections that could fold open. ²⁵ The doors to the main room were decorated with carvings of winged creatures and palm trees just like those on the walls, and there was a wooden covering over the porch just outside these doors. ²⁶ The walls on each side of this porch had small windows and were also decorated with carvings of palm trees.

Friendship with the World

4 Why do you fight and argue with each other? Isn't it because you are full of selfish desires that fight to control your body? ² You want something you don't have, and you will do anything to get it. You will even kill! But you still cannot get what you want, and you won't get it by fighting and arguing. You should pray for it. ³ Yet even when you do pray, your prayers are not answered, because you pray just for selfish reasons.

⁴ You people aren't faithful to God! Don't you know if you love the world, you are God's enemies? And if you decide to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. ⁵ Do you doubt the Scriptures that say, “God truly cares about the Spirit he has put in us”?^{[a] 6 (A)} In fact, God treats us with even greater kindness, just as the Scriptures say,

⁷ Surrender to God! Resist the devil, and he will run from you. ⁸ Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Clean up your lives, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you people who can't make up your mind. ⁹ Be sad and sorry and weep. Stop laughing and start crying. Be gloomy instead of glad. ¹⁰ Be humble in the Lord's presence, and he will honor you.

Saying Cruel Things about Others

¹¹ My friends, don't say cruel things about others! If you do, or if you condemn others, you are condemning God's Law. And if you condemn the Law, you put yourself above the Law and refuse to obey either it ¹² or God who gave it. God is our judge, and he can save or destroy us. What right do you have to condemn anyone?

Warning against Bragging

^13 (B)(C) You should know better than to say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to the city. We will do business there for a year and make a lot of money!” ¹⁴ What do you know about tomorrow? How can you be so sure about your life? It is nothing more than mist that appears for only a little while before it disappears. ¹⁵ You should say, “If the Lord lets us live, we will do these things.” ¹⁶ Yet you are stupid enough to brag, and it is wrong to be so proud. ¹⁷ If you don't do what you know is right, you have sinned.