Ezekiel 46

¹ Thus says the Lord GOD: The gate toward the east of the inner court shall remain closed throughout the six working days, but on the sabbath and on the day of the new moon it shall be open.

² The prince shall enter from outside by way of the vestibule of the gate and remain standing at the doorpost of the gate; then while the priests offer his holocausts and peace offerings, he shall worship at the threshold of the gate and then leave; the gate shall not be closed until evening.

³ The people of the land shall worship before the LORD at the door of this gate on the sabbaths and new moons.

⁴ The holocausts which the prince presents to the LORD on the sabbath shall consist of six unblemished lambs and an unblemished ram,

⁵ together with a cereal offering of one ephah for the ram, whatever he pleases for the lambs, and a hin of oil for each ephah.

⁶ On the day of the new moon he shall provide an unblemished young bull, also six lambs and a ram without blemish,

⁷ with a cereal offering of one ephah for the bull and one for the ram, for the lambs as much as he has at hand, and for each ephah a hin of oil.

⁸ The prince shall always enter and depart by the vestibule of the gate.

⁹ When the people of the land enter the presence of the LORD to worship on the festivals, if they enter by the north gate they shall leave by the south gate, and if they enter by the south gate they shall leave by the north gate; no one shall return by the gate through which he has entered, but he shall leave by the opposite gate.

¹⁰ The prince shall be in their midst when they enter, and he shall also leave with them.

¹¹ On the feasts and festivals the cereal offering shall be an ephah for a bull, an ephah for a ram, but for the lambs as much as one pleases, and a hin of oil with each ephah.

¹² When the prince makes a freewill offering to the LORD, whether holocausts or peace offerings, the eastern gate shall be opened for him, and he shall offer his holocausts or his peace offerings as on the sabbath; then he shall leave, and the gate shall be closed after his departure.

¹³ He shall offer as a daily holocaust to the LORD an unblemished yearling lamb; this he shall offer every morning.

¹⁴ With it every morning he shall provide as a cereal offering one sixth of an ephah, with a third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour. This cereal offering to the LORD is mandatory with the established holocaust.

¹⁵ The lamb, the cereal offering, and the oil are to be offered every morning as an established holocaust.

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord GOD: If the prince makes a gift of part of his inheritance to any of his sons, it shall belong to his sons; that property is theirs by inheritance.

¹⁷ But if he makes a gift of part of his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall belong to the latter only until the year of release, when it shall revert to the prince. Only the inheritance given to his sons is permanent.

¹⁸ The prince shall not seize any part of the inheritance of the people by evicting them from their property. He shall provide an inheritance for his sons from his own property, so that none of my people will be driven from their property.

¹⁹ Then he brought me by the entrance which is on the side of the gate to the chambers (of the sanctuary, reserved to the priests) which face the north. There, at their west end, I saw a place,

²⁰ concerning which he said to me, "Here the priests cook the guilt offerings and the sin offerings, and bake the cereal offerings, so that they do not have to take them into the outer court at the risk of transmitting holiness to the people."

²¹ Then he led me into the outer court and had me pass around the four corners of the court, and I saw that in each corner there was another court:

²² in the four corners of the court, minor courts, forty cubits long and thirty wide, all four of them the same size.

²³ A wall of stones surrounded each of the four, and hearths were built beneath the stones all the way around.

²⁴ He said to me, "These are the kitchens where the temple ministers cook the sacrifices of the people."