CHAPTER 43

¹And he led me to the gate, the gate that faces the eastern way. ²And, look, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the eastern way, and its sound was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone from His glory. ³And it was like the look of the sight that I had seen, like that sight that I had seen when I came to pronounce the destruction of the city, and sights like the sight I had seen by the Kebar Canal. And I fell on my face. ⁴And the glory of the LORD came into the house through the gate that faced the eastern way. ⁵And a wind bore me up and brought me to the inner court, and, look, the glory of the LORD filled the house. ⁶And I heard it speaking to me, and a man was standing by me. ⁷And he said to me, “Man, the place of My throne and the soles of My feet where I dwell in the midst of the Israelites forever! Nor shall the house of Israel defile My name anymore—they and their kings—with their whoring and with the corpses of their kings, their high places, ⁸when they set their threshold by My threshold and their doorpost by My doorpost, with the wall between them and Me, and they defiled My holy name with their abominations that they did, and I made an end to them in My wrath. ⁹Now let them put far from Me their whoring and the corpses of their kings, and I will dwell in their midst forever. ¹⁰You, man, tell the house of Israel about the house, and let them be ashamed of their crimes, and let them measure its design. ¹¹And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, inform them of the plan of the house and its design and its exits and its entrances and all its plan and all its regulations [and inform them of all its designs and all its rules] and write them before their eyes that they may observe all its design and all its regulations and do them. ¹²This is the regulation for the house on the mountaintop, all its boundaries all around are holy of holies. Look, this is the regulation for the house. ¹³And these are the measurements of the altar in cubits, a cubit and a cubit and a handsbreadth, and the trench a cubit deep and its boundary at its edge all around one span and its depth one cubit. And this is the structure of the altar. ¹⁴From the trench in the ground to the lower level it is two cubits, and one cubit wide, and from the small level to the large level, four cubits and a cubit wide. ¹⁵And the altar hearth is four cubits, and from the altar hearth to above the horns on the altar four. ¹⁶And the altar hearth is twelve cubits long by twelve cubits wide, square on its four sides. ¹⁷And the level section is fourteen cubits long by fourteen cubits wide on its four sides, and the boundary around it is half a cubit, and it has a trench a cubit all around, and its steps face the east.” ¹⁸And he said to me, “Man, thus said the Master, the LORD: These are the statutes of the altar on the day it is made, to offer up on it a burnt offering and to cast blood upon it. ¹⁹And you shall give these to the levitical priests who are the seed of Zadok, who may draw near to Me, said the Master, the LORD, to minister unto Me, a bull from the herd for an offense offering. ²⁰And you shall take from its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar and at the four corners of the level section and on the boundary all around, and you shall purify and purge it. ²¹And you shall take the bull of the offense offering and burn it in the set place of the house outside the sanctuary. ²²On the second day you shall sacrifice an unblemished he-goat as an offense offering, and they shall purify the altar as they purified with the bull. ²³When you finish purifying, you shall sacrifice an unblemished bull from the herd and an unblemished ram from the flock. ²⁴And you shall sacrifice them before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the LORD. ²⁵Seven days you shall do a goat for offense offering each day and a bull from the herd and a ram from the flock. Unblemished shall they be. ²⁶Seven days they shall purge the altar and make it clean and consecrate it, ²⁷and the days shall be completed. And it shall happen from the eighth day onward that the priests shall do their burnt offerings and their well-being sacrifices on the altar, and I will accept them favorably, said the Master, the LORD.”