⁴ The inner room of the sanctuary was 35 feet^[a] long and 35 feet wide. “This,” he told me, “is the Most Holy Place.”

²⁰ This inner sanctuary was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high. He overlaid the inside with solid gold. He also overlaid the altar made of cedar.^[a]

³ Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room^[a] called the Most Holy Place. ⁴ In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant. ⁵ Above the Ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the Ark’s cover, the place of atonement. But we cannot explain these things in detail now.

⁶ When these things were all in place, the priests regularly entered the first room^[b] as they performed their religious duties. ⁷ But only the high priest ever entered the Most Holy Place, and only once a year. And he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. ⁸ By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the entrance to the Most Holy Place was not freely open as long as the Tabernacle^[c] and the system it represented were still in use.

⁸ He made the Most Holy Place 30 feet wide, corresponding to the width of the Temple, and 30 feet deep. He overlaid its interior with 23 tons^[a] of fine gold.

³³ Hang the inner curtain from clasps, and put the Ark of the Covenant^[a] in the room behind it. This curtain will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.

³⁴ “Then put the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—on top of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place.

¹⁶ When he measured it, he found it was a square, as wide as it was long. In fact, its length and width and height were each 1,400 miles.^[a]

¹⁶ He partitioned off an inner sanctuary—the Most Holy Place—at the far end of the Temple. It was 30 feet deep and was paneled with cedar from floor to ceiling.

⁵ He built a complex of rooms against the outer walls of the Temple, all the way around the sides and rear of the building.