He said to me, “This chamber which faces south is for the priests who keep charge of the temple, ¹ 

You will present them before the Lord, and the priests will scatter salt on them ¹  and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.

No priest may drink wine when he enters the inner court.

The priests will not eat any bird or animal that has died a natural death or was torn to pieces by a wild animal. ¹ 

The first of all the first fruits and all contributions of any kind ¹  will be for the priests; you will also give to the priest the first portion of your dough, so that a blessing may rest on your house.

Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders.

and the chamber which faces north is for the priests who keep charge of the altar. These are the descendants of Zadok, from the descendants of Levi, who may approach the Lord to minister to him.”

you will give a young bull for a sin offering to the Levitical priests who are descended from Zadok, who approach me to minister to me, declares the sovereign Lord.

They must not marry a widow or a divorcee, but they may marry a virgin from the house of Israel ¹  or a widow who is a priest’s widow.

It will be a holy portion of the land; it will be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary who approach the Lord to minister to him. It will be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary. ¹ 

The priest will take some of the blood of the sin offering and place it on the doorpost of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the doorpost of the gate of the inner court.

This will be for the priests who are set apart from the descendants of Zadok who kept my charge and did not go astray when the people of Israel strayed off, like the Levites did. ¹ 

the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel ¹  the son of Buzi, ²  at the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. ³  The hand ⁴  of the Lord came on him there).

Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, ¹  or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore ²  my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst.

When the priests enter, then they will not go out from the sanctuary to the outer court without taking off their garments in which they minister, for these are holy; they will put on other garments, then they will go near the places where the people are.”

When the prescribed period is over, ¹  on the eighth day and thereafter the priests will offer up on the altar your burnt offerings and your peace offerings; ²  I will accept you, declares the sovereign Lord.”

“‘But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok ¹  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.

The prince will enter by way of the porch of the gate from the outside, and will stand by the doorpost of the gate. The priests will provide his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he will bow down at the threshold of the gate and then go out. But the gate will not be closed until evening.

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 ¹  a place at the extreme western end.

He said to me, “This is the place where the priests will boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they will bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them out to the outer court to transmit holiness to the people.”