Ezekiel 45
English Standard Version
The Holy District
45 “When (A)you allot the land as an inheritance, (B)you shall set apart for the Lord a portion of the land as a holy district, 25,000 cubits[a] long and 20,000[b] cubits broad. It shall be holy throughout its whole extent. 2 (C)Of this a square plot of 500 by 500 cubits shall be for the sanctuary, with fifty cubits for (D)an open space around it. 3 And (E)from this measured district you shall measure off a section 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 broad, (F)in which shall be the sanctuary, (G)the Most Holy Place. 4 (H)It shall be the holy portion of the land. It shall be for the priests, who minister in the sanctuary and approach the Lord to minister to him, and it shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary. 5 (I)Another section, 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits broad, shall be for the Levites who minister at the temple, as their possession for cities to live in.[c]
6 “Alongside the portion set apart as the holy district (J)you shall assign for the property of the city an area 5,000 cubits broad and 25,000 cubits long. (K)It shall belong to the whole house of Israel.
The Portion for the Prince
7 (L)“And to (M)the prince shall belong the land on both sides of the holy district and the property of the city, alongside the holy district and the property of the city, on the west and on the east, corresponding in length to one of the tribal portions, and extending from the western to the eastern boundary 8 of the land. It is to be his property in Israel. And (N)my princes shall no more oppress my people, but (O)they shall let the house of Israel have the land according to their tribes.
9 “Thus says the Lord God: (P)Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease (Q)your evictions of my people, declares the Lord God.
10 (R)“You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath.[d] 11 The ephah and the bath shall be (S)of the same measure, (T)the bath containing one tenth of a homer,[e] and the ephah one tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. 12 (U)The shekel shall be twenty gerahs;[f] twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your mina.[g]
13 (V)“This is the offering that you shall make: one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat, and one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley, 14 and as the fixed portion of oil, measured in baths, one tenth of a bath from each cor[h] (the cor, like the homer, contains (W)ten baths).[i] 15 And one sheep from every flock of two hundred, from the watering places of Israel for grain offering, burnt offering, and peace offerings, (X)to make atonement for them, declares the Lord God. 16 All the people of the land shall be obliged to give this offering to the prince in Israel. 17 (Y)It shall be the prince's duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.
18 “Thus says the Lord God: In the first month, (Z)on the first day of the month, you shall take a bull from the herd without blemish, and (AA)purify the sanctuary. 19 (AB)The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it (AC)on the doorposts of the temple, the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and the posts of the gate of the inner court. 20 You shall do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who has sinned through error or ignorance; so you shall make atonement for the temple.
21 (AD)“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall celebrate the Feast of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. 22 On that day the prince (AE)shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a young bull for a sin offering. 23 And on (AF)the seven days of the festival he shall provide as a burnt offering to the Lord seven young bulls and seven rams without blemish, on each of the seven days; and (AG)a male goat daily for a sin offering. 24 And (AH)he shall provide as (AI)a grain offering an ephah for each bull, an ephah for each ram, and a hin[j] of oil to each ephah. 25 (AJ)In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month and for the seven days of the feast, (AK)he shall make the same provision for sin offerings, burnt offerings, and grain offerings, and for the oil.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 45:1 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters; a long cubit (see 40:5) was about 21 inches or 53 centimeters
- Ezekiel 45:1 Septuagint; Hebrew 10,000
- Ezekiel 45:5 Septuagint; Hebrew as their possession, twenty chambers
- Ezekiel 45:10 An ephah was about 3/5 of a bushel or 22 liters; a bath was about 6 gallons or 22 liters
- Ezekiel 45:11 A homer was about 6 bushels or 220 liters
- Ezekiel 45:12 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams; a gerah was about 1/50 ounce or 0.6 gram
- Ezekiel 45:12 A mina was about 1 1/4 pounds or 0.6 kilogram
- Ezekiel 45:14 A cor was about 6 bushels or 220 liters
- Ezekiel 45:14 See Vulgate; Hebrew (ten baths are a homer, for ten baths are a homer)
- Ezekiel 45:24 A hin was about 4 quarts or 3.5 liters
Ezekiel 45
Good News Translation
The Lord's Portion of the Country
45 When the land is divided to give each tribe a share, one part is to be dedicated to the Lord. It is to be 10 miles long by 8 miles[a] wide. The entire area will be holy. 2 In this area there is to be a square plot of land for the Temple, 840 feet on each side, entirely surrounded by an open space 84 feet wide. 3 Half of this area, a section 10 miles by 4 miles, is to be measured off; it will contain the Temple, the holiest place of all. 4 It will be a holy part of the country, set aside for the priests who serve the Lord in his Temple. It will contain their houses and the section of land for the Temple. 5 The other half of the area is to be set aside as the possession of the Levites, who do the work in the Temple. There will be towns there for them to live in.[b]
6 Next to the holy area, another section, 10 miles long and 2 miles wide, is to be set aside for a city where any of the people of Israel may live.
Land for the Prince
7 Land is also to be set aside for the ruling prince. From the west boundary of the holy area it will extend west to the Mediterranean Sea; and from the east boundary it will extend to the eastern border of the country, so that its length will be the same as the length of one of the areas allotted to the tribes of Israel. 8 This area will be the share the ruling prince will have in the land of Israel, so that he will no longer oppress the people, but will let the rest of the country belong to the tribes of Israel.
Rules for the Prince
9 The Sovereign Lord said, “You have sinned too long, you rulers of Israel! Stop your violence and oppression. Do what is right and just. You must never again drive my people off their land. I, the Sovereign Lord, am telling you this.
10 (A)“Everyone must use honest weights and measures:
11 “The ephah for dry measure is to be equal to the bath for liquid measure. The standard is the homer.[c] The resulting measures are as follows:
1 homer = 10 ephahs = 10 baths
12 “Your weights are to be as follows:
20 gerahs = 1 shekel[d]
60 shekels = 1 mina
13-15 “This is the basis on which you are to make your offerings:
Wheat: 1/60th of your harvest
Barley: 1/60th of your harvest
Olive oil: 1/100th of the yield of your trees
(Measure it by the bath 10 baths = 1 homer = 1 kor)
Sheep: 1 sheep out of every 200 from the meadows of Israel
“You are to bring grain offerings, animals to be burned whole, and animals for fellowship offerings, so that your sins will be forgiven. I, the Sovereign Lord, command it.
16 “All the people of the land must take[e] these offerings to the ruling prince of Israel. 17 It will be his duty to provide the animals to be burned whole, the grain offerings, and the wine offerings for the whole nation of Israel at the New Moon Festivals, the Sabbaths, and the other festivals. He is to provide the sin offerings, the grain offerings, the offerings to be burned whole, and the fellowship offerings, to take away the sins of the people of Israel.”
The Festivals(B)
18 The Sovereign Lord said, “On the first day of the first month you are to sacrifice a bull without any defects and purify the Temple. 19 The priest will take some of the blood of this sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the altar, and on the posts of the gateways to the inner courtyard. 20 On the seventh day of the month you are to do the same thing on behalf of anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance. In this way you will keep the Temple holy.
21 (C)“On the fourteenth day of the first month you will begin the celebration of the Passover Festival. For seven days everyone will eat bread made without yeast. 22 On the first day of the festival the ruling prince must offer a bull as a sacrifice for his sins and for those of all the people. 23 On each of the seven days of the festival he is to sacrifice to the Lord seven bulls and seven rams without any defects and burn them whole. He is also to sacrifice a male goat each day as a sin offering. 24 For each bull and each ram that is sacrificed, there is to be an offering of half a bushel of grain and three quarts of olive oil.
25 (D)“For the Festival of Shelters, which begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the prince will offer on each of the seven days the same sacrifice for sin, the same offerings to be burned whole, and the same offerings of grain and olive oil.”
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 45:1 One ancient translation 8 miles; Hebrew 4 miles.
- Ezekiel 45:5 One ancient translation towns there for them to live in; Hebrew twenty rooms.
- Ezekiel 45:11 A unit of dry or liquid measure, about 5 bushels or 175 quarts; so an ephah or a bath would be about ½ bushel or 17.5 quarts.
- Ezekiel 45:12 In Ezekiel's time this unit of weight was about 0.4 ounce or 11.4 grams.
- Ezekiel 45:16 Probable text must take; Hebrew unclear.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
