²⁴ There was one full-time guard appointed to each of the four sides of the temple. ²⁵ Their assistants lived in the villages outside the city, and every seven days a group of them would come into the city and take their turn at guard duty. ²⁶ The four full-time guards were Levites, and they supervised the other guards and were responsible for the rooms in the temple and the supplies kept there.