Chronological
Rules about the temple
44 Then the man brought me back to the outside gate on the east side of the temple yard. But the gate was shut.
2 The Lord said to me, ‘This gate must stay shut. Nobody may go through it. Nobody may open it again. The Lord, Israel's God, has gone through it. So it must stay shut. 3 Only Israel's ruler is allowed to sit in the gate's entrance. He may sit there to eat a holy meal in front of the Lord. He may only go in and out through the entrance room of that gate.’
4 Then the man took me through the north gate of the temple yard. We went to the front of the temple building. As I watched, I saw that the Lord's glory filled his temple. I bent down low with my face on the ground.
5 The Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, listen to what I tell you. Think carefully about it. These are the rules and laws about the Lord's temple. Understand about its entrances and the people who are allowed to go in and out of the temple. 6 Israel's people refuse to obey me. Say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: Israel's people, you have done too many disgusting things! 7 You brought foreigners into my temple. They were not circumcised and they did not want to belong to me. In that way, you made my own temple unclean. You did that when you offered food, fat and blood to me there. You did not obey my covenant with you, when you did all these disgusting things. 8 You did not take care of my holy things yourselves. Instead you chose foreigners to take care of my holy place on your behalf. 9 This is what the Almighty Lord God says: No foreigner may go into my holy place if he is not circumcised and he does not want to obey me. Even if that foreigner lives among my people, the Israelites, he must not go in there.
10 As well as other Israelites, some Levite men turned away from me to worship idols. I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. 11 But they may continue to serve me in the work of the temple. They can be guards at the temple gates. They can kill the animals that people bring for burnt offerings and other sacrifices. They can help the people who come to worship me. 12 But I promise that I will punish them as they deserve for their sin. That is because they helped the people to worship their idols. In that way, they caused Israel's people to do bad things. I, the Almighty Lord, promise that I will punish them. 13 They must not come near to me to serve me as the priests do. They must not touch any of my holy things or the most holy offerings. Instead, they must be ashamed of the disgusting things that they have done. 14 But I will allow them to take care of the temple and all the ordinary work that is done there.
15 Only the priests who are descendants of Zadok, the Levite, may come near to me and serve me.[a] When Israel's people turned away from me, only the priests of Zadok's family faithfully served me in my temple. So now Zadok's descendants may offer to me the fat and the blood of sacrifices. That is what the Almighty Lord says. 16 Only they can come into my holy place and serve me at the altar. They will do what I tell them to do.
17 When they come through the gates into the inside yard, they must wear linen clothes. The clothes that they wear while they serve me must not have any wool in them. They must wear linen clothes when they work at the gates of the inside yard or in the temple. 18 They must wear linen cloths around their heads. The trousers that they wear next to their skin must also be made of linen. They must not tie anything around their body that makes them sweat.[b] 19 Before they go out to the outside yard to meet the ordinary people, they must take off their special clothes. They must leave the clothes that they wore when they were serving me in one of the rooms in the holy place. They must put on other clothes before they go out. Then their special clothes will not touch the people and make them holy.
20 The priests must not cut all the hair off their heads. They must not let it grow long either. They must keep their hair short. 21 When a priest goes into the inside yard of the temple, he must not drink anywine. 22 Priests must not marry a widow, or a woman whose husband has sent her away. They may only marry Israelite women who have never had sex. Or they may marry a widow whose husband had been a priest. 23 They must teach my people that holy things are different from ordinary things. They must also show them how to know if something is clean or unclean.
24 If people have an argument, the priests must be their judges. They must use my laws to decide who is right. They must obey the rules about my special festivals. They must respect Sabbath days as holy.
25 A priest must not go near to a dead person. It would make him unclean. But if the dead person is his father, his mother, his son, his daughter, his brother or his sister who has not married, he may go near them. It makes him unclean but he may do that. 26 After this, he must make himself clean. Then he must wait seven days. 27 Then he can go into the inside yard of the temple to serve me there. On the day that he goes back there, he must make a sin offering for himself. That is what the Almighty Lord says.
28 Do not give the priests their own land in Israel to keep for their descendants. I myself will be the gift that they receive. I will take care of them and their families. 29 They will receive the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings. They are allowed to eat some of those offerings that the people bring. All the special things that people give to the Lord will belong to the priests. 30 The best of all the first crops from people's land and all their special gifts will belong to the priests. You must also give to the priests the first flour that you make from your grain. Then I will bless the people who live in your house. 31 The priests must not eat any bird or any animal that people find dead. They must not eat anything that a wild animal has killed.” ’
Special land for the Lord
45 ‘You must divide the land into different parts to belong to each tribe. When you do this, you must give one part to the Lord. It will belong to the Lord as a holy piece of land. It will be 12½ kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. All of this land will be holy. 2 Part of this land will be for the temple. It will be 250 metres long and 250 metres wide. Keep an empty space 25 metres wide all around this piece of land. 3 Inside the holy piece of land, measure a part that is 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide. This part will contain the temple, the most holy place. 4 The priests will have this holy part of the land. They are the men who work in the temple and come near to the Lord to serve him. The priests' houses will be there, as well as the temple. 5 The other half of the holy piece of land will be for the Levites, who work in the temple. They will have towns there to live in. Their land will be 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide.
6 There will also be a piece of land for the city, 12½ kilometres long and 2½ kilometres wide. It will be beside the holy piece of land. Any of Israel's people may live there.
7 There will be two pieces of land for the ruler. One piece will be on the east side of the holy piece of land and the land for the city. The other piece will be on the west side. The piece on the west side will go as far as the sea. The piece on the east side will go as far as the border of the land. So his land will be as long as a part of the land that belongs to each tribe. 8 This will be the part of Israel's land that belongs to the ruler. Because my rulers will have their own land, they will no longer need to make my people suffer. They will give to each tribe a part of the land that will belong to them.
9 The Almighty Lord says this: Rulers of Israel, stop cheating my people and making them suffer! You have done enough bad things! Instead, do things that are right and fair. Stop chasing my people off their land. That is what the Almighty Lord says.
10 You must use correct measures for size and for weight. 11 The ephah that you use to measure dry things must be the same measure that you use for wet things. Ten ephahs will be equal to one homer. 12 20 gerahs will be equal to one shekel. 60 shekels will be equal to one mina.[c]
Offerings and holy days
13 This is the offering that you must give. Take from your harvest one homer from every 60 homers of wheat or barley. 14 Take one litre of olive oil from every 100 litres. 15 Take one sheep from every 200 sheep that feed on the grass in Israel. These gifts will be for grain offerings, for burnt offerings and for friendship offerings. These offerings will cause me to forgive you for your sins. I, the Almighty Lord, tell you to do this.
16 All Israel's people must bring these offerings to the ruler of Israel. 17 The ruler must provide the animals for the burnt offerings. He must provide the grain for the grain offerings and the wine for the wine offerings. He must provide these things for the holy festivals that I have chosen for Israel's people. Those include feasts for the new moon and for the Sabbath days. He must provide these things for the sin offerings, the grain offerings, the burnt offerings and the friendship offerings. They will cause me to forgive the sins of Israel's people.
18 This is what the Almighty Lord says: Each year, on the first day of the first month, you must offer a young bull as a sacrifice. It must not have anything wrong with it. This sacrifice will cause the temple to be clean. 19 The priest will take some of the blood of this sin offering and he will put it on the posts of the temple doors. He must also put some of the blood on the four corners on the top of the altar. He must also put some blood on the gate posts at the entrance to the inside yard of the temple. 20 You must also do this on the seventh day of the first month. That will cause me to forgive anyone who has done a wrong thing by mistake. Perhaps they did not know that it was a sin. In this way you will make the temple a clean place for me.
21 Each year, on the 14th day of the first month, you must start the Passover festival. The festival will continue for seven days.[d] During that time you must not eat any bread that hasyeast in it.
22 On the first day of the festival, the ruler must provide a bull as a sin offering. It is an offering for himself and for all the people of Israel. 23 Every day of the feast he must provide seven young bulls and seven male sheep for burnt offerings to the Lord. The animals must have nothing wrong with them. Each day of the festival, he must also give a male goat as a sin offering. 24 With each bull and each sheep, the ruler must also provide an ephah of grain. He must provide a hin of olive oil with each ephah of grain.[e]
25 You will have another festival that starts on the 15th day of the 7th month. It will continue for seven days. Each day, the ruler must provide the same things for sin offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, as well as the olive oil.’
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