Beginning
Restoration of the Temple
Chapter 43
The Glory of the Lord Returns. 1 Then he led me to the gate facing east,(A) 2 and there was the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east! His voice was like the roar of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. 3 The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city and like the vision I had seen by the river Chebar—I fell on my face. 4 The glory of the Lord entered the temple by way of the gate facing east.(B) 5 Then the spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court. And there the glory of the Lord filled the temple!(C) 6 I heard someone speaking to me from the temple, but the man was standing beside me. 7 The voice said to me: Son of man, do you see the place for my throne, and the place for the soles of my feet? Here I will dwell among the Israelites forever. The house of Israel, neither they nor their kings, will never again defile my holy name, with their prostitutions and the corpses of their kings at their death.(D) 8 When they placed their threshold against my threshold[a] and their doorpost next to mine, with only a wall between me and them, they defiled my holy name by the abominations they committed, and I devoured them in my wrath.(E) 9 From now on, let them put their prostitution and the corpses of their kings far from me, and I will dwell in their midst forever.(F)
The Law of the Temple. 10 As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel so they are ashamed for their sins. Let them measure its layout. 11 If they are ashamed for all they have done, tell them about the layout and design of the temple, its exits and entrances, with all its regulations and instructions; write it down for them to see, that they may carefully observe all its laws and statutes. 12 This is the law for the temple: the entire area on top of the mountain all around will be a most holy place. This is the law for the temple.
The Altar. 13 These were the dimensions of the altar[b] in cubits, a cubit being one cubit plus a handbreadth. The channel was one cubit deep by one cubit wide, and its rim had a lip one span wide all around it.(G) The height of the altar itself was as follows: 14 from the channel at floor level up to the lower ledge was two cubits, with the ledge one cubit wide; from the lower ledge to the upper ledge, four cubits, with the ledge one cubit wide. 15 The altar hearth was four cubits high, and extending up from the top of the hearth were four horns. 16 The hearth was twelve cubits long and twelve cubits wide, a square with four equal sides. 17 The upper ledge was fourteen cubits long and fourteen cubits wide on all four sides. The rim around it was half a cubit, with a channel one cubit all around. The steps faced east.(H)
18 Then he said to me: Son of man, thus says the Lord God: These are the statutes for the altar when it is set up for sacrificing burnt offerings and splashing blood on it.(I) 19 A young bull must be brought as a purification offering to the priests, the Levites descended from Zadok, who come near to serve me—oracle of the Lord God.(J) 20 You shall take some of its blood and smear it on the four horns of the altar, and on the four corners of the ledge, and all around its rim. Thus you shall purify and purge it.(K) 21 Then take the bull as purification offering and burn it in the appointed place outside the sanctuary.(L) 22 On the second day present an unblemished male goat as a purification offering, to purify the altar as you did with the bull. 23 When you have completed the purification,(M) you must bring an unblemished young bull and an unblemished ram from the flock 24 and present them before the Lord. The priests shall throw salt on them and sacrifice them as burnt offerings to the Lord. 25 Daily for seven days you shall give a male goat as a purification offering; and a young bull and a ram from the flock, all unblemished,(N) shall be offered 26 for seven days. Thus they shall purge the altar, in order to cleanse and dedicate it. 27 And when these days are over, from the eighth day on, the priests shall sacrifice your burnt offerings and communion offerings on the altar. Then I will be pleased with you—oracle of the Lord God.
Chapter 44
The Closed Gate. 1 Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary facing east, but it was closed. 2 The Lord said to me: This gate must remain closed; it must not be opened, and no one should come through it. Because the Lord, the God of Israel, came through it, it must remain closed. 3 Only the prince may sit in it to eat a meal in the presence of the Lord; he must enter through the vestibule of the gate and leave the same way.[c](O)
The New Law
Admission to the Temple. 4 Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the facade of the temple. I looked—and the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house! I fell on my face.(P) 5 The Lord said to me: Son of man, pay close attention, look carefully, and listen intently to everything I tell you about all the statutes and laws of the Lord’s house. Pay close attention to the entrance into the temple and all the exits of the sanctuary. 6 Say to that rebellious house, the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: Enough of all your abominations, house of Israel! 7 You have admitted foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, into my sanctuary to profane it when you offered me food, the fat and blood.[d] Thus you have broken my covenant by all your abominations.(Q) 8 Instead of caring for the service of my sanctuary, you appointed these foreigners to care for the service of my sanctuary. 9 Thus says the Lord God: No foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, shall ever enter my sanctuary: not even any of the foreigners who live among the Israelites.(R)
Levites. 10 As for the Levites who went far away from me when Israel strayed from me after their idols, they will bear the consequences of their sin. 11 They will serve in my sanctuary only as gatekeepers and temple servants; they will slaughter burnt offerings and sacrifices for the people. They will stand before the people to serve them.(S) 12 Because they used to serve them before their idols, thus becoming a stumbling block to the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn an oath against them, says the Lord God, and they will bear the consequences of their sin. 13 They shall no longer come near to serve as my priests, nor shall they touch any of my sacred things or my most sacred offerings, for they must bear their shame, the abominations they committed. 14 Instead I will make them responsible for the service of the temple and all its work, for everything that must be done in it.(T)
Priests. 15 As for the levitical priests, sons of Zadok, who took charge of my sanctuary when the Israelites strayed from me, they may approach me to serve me and stand before me to offer the fat and the blood—oracle of the Lord God.(U) 16 They may enter my sanctuary; they may approach my table to serve me and carry out my service.(V) 17 Whenever they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments; they shall not put on anything woolen when they serve at the gates of the inner court or within the temple. 18 (W)They shall have linen turbans on their heads and linen undergarments on their loins; they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat. 19 (X)And when they go out to the people in the outer court, they shall take off the garments in which they served and leave them in the rooms of the sanctuary, and put on other garments so they do not transmit holiness to the people[e] by their garments.
20 (Y)They shall not shave their heads nor let their hair hang loose, but they shall keep their hair carefully trimmed. 21 No priest shall drink wine before he enters the inner court. 22 (Z)They shall not take as wives either widows or divorced women, but only unmarried women from the line of Israel; however, they may take as wives widows who are widows of priests. 23 (AA)They shall teach my people to distinguish between sacred and profane and make known to them the difference between clean and unclean. 24 (AB)In legal cases they shall stand as judges, judging according to my ordinances. They shall observe all my laws and statutes regarding all my appointed feasts, and they shall keep my sabbaths holy.
25 (AC)They shall not make themselves unclean by going near a dead body; only for their father, mother, son, daughter, brother, or unmarried sister may they make themselves unclean. 26 After he is again clean, he must wait an additional seven days; 27 on the day he enters the inner court to serve in the sanctuary, he shall present a purification offering for himself—oracle of the Lord God. 28 (AD)I will be their heritage: I am their heritage! You shall not give them any property in Israel, for I am their property! 29 (AE)They shall eat grain offerings, purification offerings, and reparation offerings; anything under the ban[f] in Israel belongs to them; 30 (AF)all the choicest first fruits of every kind and all the best of your offerings of every kind shall belong to the priests; the best of your dough you shall also give to the priests to bring a blessing upon your house. 31 (AG)The priests shall not eat anything, whether bird or animal, that died naturally or was killed by wild beasts.
Chapter 45
The Holy Portion. 1 When you apportion the land heritage by heritage, you shall set apart a holy portion for the Lord, holier than the rest of the land—twenty-five thousand cubits long and twenty thousand cubits wide; the entire area shall be holy. 2 Of this land a square plot, five hundred by five hundred cubits, shall be assigned to the sanctuary, with fifty cubits of free space around it. 3 From this tract also measure off a length of twenty-five thousand cubits and a width of ten thousand cubits; on it the sanctuary, the holy of holies, shall stand. 4 This shall be the sacred part of the land belonging to the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who draw near to minister to the Lord; it shall be a place for their homes and an area set apart for the sanctuary. 5 There shall also be a strip twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand wide for the Levites, the ministers of the temple, so they have cities to live in. 6 You shall assign a strip five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand long as the property of the city parallel to the sacred tract; this shall belong to the whole house of Israel. 7 A section shall belong to the prince, bordering both sides of the sacred tract and city combined, extending westward on the west side and eastward on the east side, corresponding in length to one of the tribal portions from the west boundary to the east boundary 8 of the land. This shall be his property in Israel so that my princes will no longer oppress my people, but will leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. 9 Thus says the Lord God: Enough, you princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and do what is just and right! Stop evicting my people!—oracle of the Lord God.
Weights and Measures.[g] 10 (AH)You shall have honest scales, an honest ephah, and an honest bath. 11 The ephah and the bath shall be the same size: the bath equal to one tenth of a homer, and the ephah equal to one tenth of a homer; their capacity is based on the homer. 12 The shekel shall be twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels make up a mina[h] for you.
Offerings. 13 This is the offering you must make: one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat and one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley. 14 This is the regulation for oil: for every bath of oil, one tenth of a bath, computed by the kor,[i] made up of ten baths, that is, a homer, for ten baths make a homer. 15 Also, one sheep from the flock for every two hundred from the pasture land of Israel, for the grain offering, the burnt offering, and communion offerings, to make atonement on their behalf—oracle of the Lord God.(AI) 16 All the people of the land shall be responsible for these offerings to the prince in Israel. 17 It shall be the duty of the prince to provide burnt offerings, grain offerings, and libations on feast days, new moons, and sabbaths, on all the festivals of the house of Israel. He shall provide the purification offering, grain offering, burnt offering, and communion offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.(AJ)
The Passover. 18 Thus says the Lord God: On the first day of the first month you shall take an unblemished young bull to purify the sanctuary.(AK) 19 The priest shall take some of the blood from the purification offering and smear it on the doorposts of the house, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the doorposts of the gates of the inner courtyard.(AL) 20 You shall repeat this on the seventh day of the month for those who have sinned inadvertently or out of ignorance; thus you shall purge the temple.(AM) 21 On the fourteenth day of the first month you shall observe the feast of Passover; for seven days unleavened bread must be eaten. 22 On that day the prince shall sacrifice, on his own behalf and on behalf of all the people of the land, a bull as a purification offering. 23 On each of the seven days of the feast he shall sacrifice, as a burnt offering to the Lord, seven bulls and seven rams without blemish, and as a purification offering he shall sacrifice one male goat each day.(AN) 24 As a grain offering he shall offer one ephah for each bull and one ephah for each ram and one hin[j] of oil for each ephah.(AO)
The Feast of Booths. 25 In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, on the feast day and for the next seven days, he shall make the same offerings: the same purification offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and offerings of oil.(AP)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.