Ezekiel 41–42

41^*Next, the man took me into the central room, the Holy Place. He measured the passage leading into it: it was three metres deep^{y 2*}and five metres wide, with walls two and a half metres thick on either side. He measured the room itself: it was twenty metres long, and ten metres wide.

^3*Then he went to the innermost room. He measured the passage leading into it: it was one metre deep and three metres wide, with walls on either side three and a half metres thick.^{z 4*}He measured the room itself, and it was ten metres square. This room was beyond the central room. Then he said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.”

The Rooms Built against the Temple Walls

^5*The man measured the thickness of the inner wall of the temple building, and it was three metres. Against this wall, all round the Temple, was a series of small rooms two metres wide. ^6*These rooms were in three storeys, with thirty rooms on each floor. The Temple’s outer wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without being anchored into it. ^7*And so the temple walls, when seen from the outside, seemed to have the same thickness all the way to the top. Against the Temple’s outer wall, on the outside of the rooms, two wide stairways were built, so that it was possible to go from the lower storey to the middle and the upper storeys.^{a 8–11*}The outside wall of these rooms was two and a half metres thick; there was one door into the rooms on the north side of the Temple, and one into those on the south side. I saw that there was a terrace two and a half metres wide all round the Temple; it was three metres above the ground and it was level with the foundation of the rooms by the temple walls. Between the terrace and the buildings used by the priests there was an open space ten metres across, along the sides of the Temple.

The Building on the West

^12*At the far end of the open space on the west side of the Temple there was a building forty-five metres long and thirty-five metres wide; its walls were two and a half metres thick all round.

The Total Measurements of the Temple Building

^13*The man measured the outside of the Temple, and it was fifty metres long. And from the back of the Temple, across the open space to the far side of the building to the west, the distance was also fifty metres. ^14*The distance across the front of the Temple, including the open space on either side, was also fifty metres. ^15*He measured the length of the building to the west, including its corridors on both sides, and it was also fifty metres.

Details of the Temple Building

The entrance room of the Temple, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place ^16*were all panelled with wood from the floor to the windows. These windows could be covered.^{b 17*}The inside walls of the Temple, up as high as above the doors, were completely covered with carvings^{c 18*}of palm trees and winged creatures. Palm trees alternated with creatures, one following the other, all the way round the room. Each creature had two faces: ^19*a human face that was turned towards the palm tree on one side, and a lion’s face that was turned towards the tree on the other side. It was like this all round the wall, ^20*from the floor to above the doors. ^21*The doorposts of the Holy Place were square.

The Wooden Altar

In front of the entrance of the Most Holy Place there was something that looked like ^22*a wooden altar. It was one and a half metres high and one metre wide. Its cornerposts, its base,^d and its sides were all made of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table which stands in the presence of the Lord.”

The Doors

^23*There was a door at the end of the passage leading to the Holy Place and one also at the end of the passage leading to the Most Holy Place. ^24*They were double doors that swung open in the middle. ^25*There were palm trees and winged creatures carved on the doors of the Holy Place, just as there were on the walls. And there was a wooden covering over the outside of the doorway of the entrance room. ^26*At the sides of this room there were windows, and the walls were decorated with palm trees.^e

Two Buildings Near the Temple

42^*Then the man took me into the outer courtyard and led me to a building on the north side of the Temple, not far from the building at the west end of the Temple. ^2*This building was fifty metres long and twenty-five metres wide. ^3*On one side it faced the space ten metres wide which was alongside the Temple, and on the other side it faced the pavement of the outer court. It was built on three levels, each one set further back than the one below it. ^4*Along the north side of this building was a passage five metres wide and fifty metres long,^f with entrances on that side. ^5*The rooms at the upper level of the building were narrower than those at the middle and lower levels because they were set further back. ^6*The rooms at all three levels were on terraces and were not supported by columns like the other buildings in the courtyard. ^7–8*At the lower level the outer wall of the building was solid for twenty-five metres, half its length; and there were rooms in the remaining twenty-five metres. At the top level there were rooms in the entire length of the building. ^9–10*Below these two rooms at the east end of the building, where the wall of the courtyard began,^g there was an entrance into the outer courtyard.

At the south^h side of the Temple there was an identical building not far from the building at the west end of the Temple. ^11*In front of the rooms there was a passage just like the one on the north side. It had the same measurements, the same design, and the same kind of entrances. ^12*There was a door under the rooms on the south side of the building, at the east end where the wall began.

^13*The man said to me, “Both these buildings are holy. In them the priests who enter the Lord’s presence eat the holiest offerings. Because the rooms are holy, the priests will place the holiest offerings there: the grain offerings and the sacrifices offered for sin or as repayment offerings. ^14*When priests have been in the Temple and want to go to the outer courtyard, they must leave in these rooms the holy clothing they wore while serving the Lord. They must put on other clothes before going out to the area where the people gather.”

The Measurements of the Temple Area

^15*When the man had finished measuring inside the temple area, he took me out through the east gate and then measured the outside of the area. ^16*He took the measuring rod and measured the east side, and it was 250 metres. ^17–19*Then he measured the north side, the south side, and the west side; each side had the same length, 250 metres,^{i 20*}so that the wall enclosed a square 250 metres on each side. The wall served to separate what was holy from what was not.