Ê-xê-chi-ên 42

The priests’ holy rooms

¹Then he led me out into the outer court on the north side and brought me to the rooms opposite the separate area and opposite the building on the north. ²The building with the north entrance was about 175 feet long and about 87 1/2 feet wide. ³It stood between the space of about 35 feet that belonged to the inner court and the pavement of the outer court, with gallery facing gallery on three levels.^{a 4}In front of the rooms, on the inner side, was a passage about 17 1/2 feet wide, a way of about 21 inches. Their doors faced north.^{b 5}The upper rooms were narrower, because the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. ⁶The rooms were on three floors and had no pillars, as the courts had. So the top floor was set back more than the lower and middle floors. ⁷There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms, on the side toward the outer court, in front of the rooms. It was about 87 1/2 feet long. ⁸The rooms on the side of the outer court were about 87 1/2 feet long, while those facing the temple were about 175 feet long. ⁹Below these rooms was an entrance on the east side, for those going into them from the outer court. ¹⁰Along the wall of the court, starting from the east, facing the separate area and the building, there were rooms too.^{c 11}There was a passage in front of them. They looked like the rooms on the north side: they were the same length and width, with the same exits, the same plan and the same doors. ¹²The rooms on the south side had a door like these, at the head of the passage that ran in front of the matching wall on the east, for those going in.^{d 13}He said to me, “The north rooms and the south rooms that face the separate area are the holy rooms where the priests who come near to the LORD will eat the most holy offerings. There they will put the most holy offerings: the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering, for the place is holy. ¹⁴Once the priests have gone in, they are not to go out from the holy area into the outer court without leaving there the garments in which they serve, for these are holy. They must change into other clothes before they go near the area for the people.” ¹⁵When he had finished measuring the inner area of the temple, he led me out by the gate that faces east and measured the whole area around it. ¹⁶He measured the east side with the measuring reed: it was about a mile by the measuring reed.^{e 17}He measured the north side: it was about a mile by the measuring reed. ¹⁸He measured the south side: it was about a mile by the measuring reed. ¹⁹He turned to the west side and measured it: it was about a mile by the measuring reed. ²⁰He measured it on all four sides. It had a wall all around it, about a mile long and about a mile wide, to separate what was holy from what was common.