1Then he led me northward into the outer court and brought me to a group of rooms opposite the Temple courtyard and the outer wall on the north side. 2The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. 3Gallery faced gallery at the three levels (stories), both in the section twenty cubits from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court. 4And in front of these rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long. Their doors were on the north. 5The upper level rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them for a walkway than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. 6The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. 7There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and to the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. 8While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the Temple was a hundred cubits long. 9The lower rooms had an entrance on the east side as one enters them from the outer court. 10Within the thickness of the outer wall of the Temple court, on the south, across the courtyard from the inner building, there were chambers (rooms), 11With a walkway in front of them. They were identical (a mirror image) of the chambers, walkway, and entrance arrangement on the north outer wall - same length and width of walkway, entrance, and doors, as those on the north. 12There was also an entrance through the east outer wall into the walkway past the chambers built against east outer wall. 13Then he said to me, “The north and south rooms facing the Temple courtyard are the priests’ rooms, where the priests who approach the LORD will eat the most holy offerings. There they will put the most holy offerings—the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings—for the place is holy. 14Once the priests enter the holy precincts, they are not to go into the outer court until they leave behind the garments in which they minister, for they are holy. They are to put on other clothes before they approach the places that are open to the people.” 15Now when he had finished measuring what was inside the Temple, he brought me out by the east gate and measured the area all around: 16He measured the east side with the measuring rod, five hundred cubits. 17He measured the north side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 18He measured the south side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 19He turned to the west side, and measured five hundred cubits with the measuring rod. 20He measured it on all four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the holy from the common. Reader-Friendly Bible: Purple Letter Edition © 2024 by Jim Musser. Used by Permission. All rights Reserved. Bible Hub |