44 Then he brought me back by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, the one facing east; and it was shut. ² Adonai said to me, “This gate will remain shut; it will not be opened, and no one will go through it; because Adonai, the God of Isra’el, has gone through it. Therefore, it is to be kept shut. ³ Only the prince, since he is a prince, is to sit there to eat his meal before Adonai; he is to enter through the vestibule of the gate and leave the same way.”

⁴ Then he brought me through the north gate to the front of the house. I looked, saw Adonai’s glory filling the house of Adonai, and fell on my face. ⁵ Adonai said to me, “Human being, pay attention; see with your eyes and hear with your ears everything I tell you about all the regulations of Adonai’s house and about all its Torah; pay attention to who can enter the house and who must be excluded from the sanctuary. ⁶ You are to tell the rebels, the house of Isra’el, that this is what Adonai Elohim says: ‘House of Isra’el, enough of all your disgusting practices! ⁷ You brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in both heart and flesh, to be in my sanctuary and profane it — yes, my house — when you offered my food, the fat and the blood; thus in addition to all your disgusting practices, they broke my covenant. ⁸ Instead of taking care of my holy things yourselves, you have put these people in charge of my sanctuary.’ ⁹ Here is what Adonai Elohim says: ‘No foreigner, uncircumcised in both heart and flesh, is to enter my sanctuary — no foreigner living among the people of Isra’el.

¹⁰ “‘Rather, the L’vi’im, who went far away from me when Isra’el went astray, going astray after their idols — they will bear the consequences of their guilt, ¹¹ but they are to serve in my sanctuary. They will have charge of the gates of the house and of serving in the house; they will slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people; and they will attend and serve them. ¹² Because they served them in the presence of their idols and became an occasion of sin for the house of Isra’el, I am raising my hand against them,’ says Adonai Elohim, ‘and they will bear the consequences of their guilt. ¹³ They will not approach me to serve me in the office of cohen or approach any of the holy things or the especially holy things; but they will bear their shame for the disgusting practices they committed. ¹⁴ Yet I will put them in charge of the house and all its maintenance and everything to be done in it.

¹⁵ “‘However, the cohanim, who are L’vi’im and descendants of Tzadok, who took care of my sanctuary when the people of Isra’el went astray from me — they are the ones who will approach me and serve me; it is they who will attend me and offer me the fat and the blood,’ says Adonai Elohim. ¹⁶ ‘They will enter my sanctuary, approach my table to minister to me and perform my service.

¹⁷ “‘Once they enter the gates of the inner courtyard, they are to wear linen clothing; they are not to wear any wool while serving at the gates of the inner courtyard or inside it. ¹⁸ They are to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen underclothes on their bodies, and they are not to wear anything that makes them sweat. ¹⁹ Before going out to the people in the outer courtyard, they are to remove the clothes in which they minister, lay them in the holy rooms, and put on other clothes; so that they won’t transmit holiness to the people by means of their clothing. ²⁰ They are not to shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but must keep their hair carefully trimmed. ²¹ No cohen is to drink wine when he enters the inner courtyard. ²² They may not marry a widow or a divorcee but must marry virgins descended from the house of Isra’el or a widow whose deceased husband was a cohen.

²³ “‘They are to teach my people the difference between holy and common and enable them to distinguish between clean and unclean. ²⁴ They are to be judges in controversies, and they are to render decisions in keeping with my rulings. At all my designated festivals they are to keep my laws and regulations, and they are to keep my shabbats holy. ²⁵ They are not to come to any dead person, because this would make them unclean; however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister who has had no husband they may make themselves unclean. ²⁶ After a cohen has been purified, he is to wait seven days. ²⁷ Then, on the day he enters the sanctuary, when he goes into the inner courtyard to minister in the sanctuary, he is to offer his sin offering,’ says Adonai Elohim.

²⁸ “‘Their inheritance is to be this: I myself am their inheritance. You are not to grant them any possession in Isra’el — I myself am their possession. ²⁹ They are to eat the grain offerings, sin offerings and guilt offerings; and everything in Isra’el devoted [to God] will be theirs. ³⁰ The first of all the firstfruits of everything, and every voluntary contribution of everything, from all your offerings, will be for the cohanim. You are also to give the cohen the first of your dough, so that a blessing will rest on your house. ³¹ The cohanim are not to eat anything, bird or animal, that dies naturally or is torn to death.

45 “‘When you divide the land by lot for inheritance, you are to set aside an offering for Adonai, a holy portion of the land. Its length is to be 25,000 [cubits, that is, eight miles] and its width 10,000 [three miles]; this entire region is to be holy. ² Of this there is to be reserved for the holy place an area 875 [feet] square, with eighty-seven-and-a-half feet for open land around it. ³ Alongside this region you are to measure a length of eight [miles] and a width of three [miles]; in it is to be the sanctuary, which will be especially holy. ⁴ It is a holy portion of the land; it is for the cohanim who serve in the sanctuary, who approach to minister to Adonai; there will be a place for their houses and a place set aside for the sanctuary. ⁵ A portion eight by three [miles] will be owned by the L’vi’im who serve in the house; it will also have twenty [gatekeepers’] rooms. ⁶ You are to give the city possession of an area, alongside the offering of the holy portion, one-and-a-half by eight [miles]; it will be for the whole house of Isra’el.

⁷ “‘The prince is to have the territory on both sides of the holy offering and the city’s holding; it will extend westward to the western border of the land and eastward to its eastern border; and the length [from the far side of one] of its two parts [to the far side of the other] will be the same as the length of one of the [tribal] portions. ⁸ His possession in Isra’el will be limited to this, and henceforth my princes will not wrong my people but will give the land to the house of Isra’el according to their tribes.’ ⁹ Adonai Elohim says this: ‘Princes of Isra’el, that should be enough for you! Get rid of violence and looting, do what is right and just, and stop evicting my people from their land!’ says Adonai Elohim.

¹⁰ “‘You are to have honest balance-scales, an honest eifah [a one-bushel dry-measure] and an honest bat [a five-gallon liquid-measure]. ¹¹ The eifah and the bat are to contain the same volume — the bat is to contain one-tenth of a homer, and the eifah is to contain one-tenth of a homer; the homer is to set the standard for measurement. ¹² Also the shekel is to be twenty gerahs; your maneh will be the sum of a twenty-shekel piece, a twenty-five-shekel piece and a fifteen-shekel piece.

¹³ “‘This is the offering you are to make: one-sixth of a bushel from every ten bushels of wheat, and you are to give one-sixth of a bushel from every ten bushels of barley. ¹⁴ The law for olive oil is to be half a gallon from every fifty gallons, which is the same as ten bats or one homer, since ten bats equal a homer. ¹⁵ From the flock, take one sheep from every two hundred being pastured in Isra’el; [all these are to be used] for grain offerings, burnt offerings and peace offerings, to make atonement for them,’ says Adonai Elohim. ¹⁶ ‘All the people in the land are to present this offering to the prince in Isra’el. ¹⁷ The prince’s obligation will be to present the burnt offerings, grain offerings and drink offerings at the feasts, on Rosh-Hodesh, and on Shabbat — at all the designated times of the house of Isra’el. He is to prepare the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings and peace offerings to make atonement for the house of Isra’el.’

¹⁸ “Adonai Elohim says this: ‘On the first day of the first month you are to take a young bull without defect and purify the sanctuary. ¹⁹ The cohen will take some of the blood from the sin offering and put it on the door-frames of the house, on the four corners of the altar’s ledge and on the supports of the gate of the inner courtyard. ²⁰ You are also to do this on the seventh day of the month for everyone who has sinned inadvertently or through ignorance. Thus you will make atonement for the house.

²¹ “‘On the fourteenth day of the first month you are to have the Pesach, a feast seven days long; matzah will be eaten. ²² On that day the prince will provide, for himself and for all the people of the land, a young bull as a sin offering. ²³ On the seven days of the feast he is to provide a burnt offering for Adonai, seven young bulls and seven rams without defect daily for the seven days, and a male goat daily as a sin offering. ²⁴ He is to provide as a grain offering a bushel [of grain] for a young bull and a bushel for a ram, and for each bushel [of grain] a gallon of olive oil.

²⁵ “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, during the feast [of Sukkot] he is to do the same thing for those seven days in regard to the sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings and olive oil.’