Then he went to the gate facing east. He climbed its steps and measured the threshold of the gate as 10½ feet deep.

The four tables for the burnt offering were of carved stone, 32 inches long, 32 inches wide, and 21 inches high. They would put the instruments which they used to slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice on them.

On the outside of the inner gate were chambers for the singers of the inner court, one at the side of the north gate facing south, and the other at the side of the south gate facing north.

The length of the porch was 35 feet and the width 19¼ feet; steps led up to it, and there were pillars beside the jambs on either side.

The side chambers were in three stories, one above the other, thirty in each story. There were offsets in the wall all around to serve as supports for the side chambers, so that the supports were not in the wall of the temple.

The building that was facing the temple courtyard at the west side was 122½ feet wide; the wall of the building was 8¾ feet all around, and its length 157½ feet.

The altar was of wood, 5¼ feet high, with its length 3½ feet; its corners, its length, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.”

When they placed their threshold by my threshold and their doorpost by my doorpost, with only the wall between me and them, they profaned my holy name by the abominable deeds they committed. So I consumed them in my anger.

The Lord said to me: “Son of man, pay attention, watch closely and listen carefully to everything I tell you concerning all the statutes of the Lord’s house and all its laws. Pay attention to the entrances to the temple with all the exits of the sanctuary.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: No foreigner, who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh among all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, will enter into my sanctuary.

Because they used to minister to them before their idols, and became a sinful obstacle to the house of Israel, consequently I have made a vow concerning them, declares the sovereign Lord, that they will be responsible for their sin.

“‘But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, will approach me to minister to me; they will stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the sovereign Lord.

When they go out to the outer court to the people, they must remove the garments they were ministering in, and place them in the holy chambers; they must put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.

“‘They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled; however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.

Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests which faced north. There I saw a place at the extreme western end.

You must allot it as an inheritance among yourselves and for the foreigners who reside among you, who have fathered sons among you. You must treat them as native-born among the people of Israel; they will be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.

“Next to the border of Judah from the east side to the west will be the allotment you must set apart. It is to be eight and a quarter miles wide, and the same length as one of the tribal portions, from the east side to the west; the sanctuary will be in the middle of it.

young men in whom there was no physical defect and who were handsome, well versed in all kinds of wisdom, well educated and having keen insight, and who were capable of entering the king’s royal service – and to teach them the literature and language of the Babylonians.

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, came to understand from the sacred books that, according to the word of the LORD disclosed to the prophet Jeremiah, the years for the fulfilling of the desolation of Jerusalem were seventy in number.

“All Israel has broken your law and turned away by not obeying you. Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you.