Ezekiel 46

1This is what Lord Yahweh says: The gate of the inner court that faces east is to remain shut on the six working days, but on the Sabbath day it is to be opened, and on the day of the new moon it is to be opened.

2The prince is to enter from outside by way of the vestibule of the gate and stand by the doorpost of the gate. The priests are to offer his burnt offering and his fellowship offerings, and he is to bow down in worship at the threshold of the gate and then go out. But the gate is not to be shut until evening.

3The people of the land are to bow down in worship before Yahweh at the entrance of that gate on the Sabbaths and on the new moons.

4The burnt offering that the prince offers to Yahweh on the Sabbath day is to be six lambs without defect and a ram without defect.

5The grain offering is to be an ephah with the ram, and the grain offering with the lambs is to be as much as he wishes to give, along with a hin of oil for each ephah.

6On the day of the new moon he is to offer a young bull, six lambs, and a ram, all of them without defect.

7He is to provide as a grain offering an ephah with the bull and an ephah with the ram, and with the lambs as much as he is able, along with a hin of oil for each ephah.

8When the prince enters, he is to go in by way of the vestibule of the gate and go out the same way.

9When the people of the land come before Yahweh at the appointed festivals, whoever enters by the north gate to worship is to go out by the south gate, and whoever enters by the south gate is to go out by the north gate. No one is to return through the gate by which he entered; each is to go straight out the opposite way.

10The prince is to be among them, going in when they go in and going out when they go out.

11At the festivals and the appointed feasts the grain offering is to be an ephah with a bull and an ephah with a ram, and with the lambs as much as he wishes to give, along with a hin of oil for each ephah.

12When the prince provides a freewill offering to Yahweh, either a burnt offering or fellowship offerings as a freewill offering, the gate that faces east is to be opened for him. He is to offer his burnt offering and his fellowship offerings as he does on the Sabbath day. Then he is to go out, and after he has gone out the gate is to be shut.

13You are to provide a year-old lamb without defect as a burnt offering to Yahweh every day; morning by morning you are to provide it.

14With it you are to provide a grain offering morning by morning: a sixth of an ephah, with a third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour. This grain offering to Yahweh is a permanent statute, to be kept continually.

15So they are to provide the lamb, the grain offering, and the oil morning by morning as a regular burnt offering.

16This is what Lord Yahweh says: If the prince gives a gift to any of his sons, it becomes that son’s inheritance; it will belong to his sons. It is their possession by inheritance.

17But if he gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it will belong to the servant until the year of liberty, and then it will return to the prince. His inheritance belongs to his sons alone; it is to be theirs.

18The prince must not take any of the people’s inheritance, driving them off their property. He is to give his sons their inheritance from his own property, so that none of my people will be driven from their property.”

19Then he brought me through the entrance at the side of the gate into the holy chambers for the priests, which faced north, and I saw a place there at the far western end.

20He said to me, “This is the place where the priests are to boil the guilt offering and the sin offering and bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them out into the outer court and so make the people holy.”

21Then he brought me out into the outer court and led me around to its four corners, and I saw that in each corner of the court there was another court.

22In the four corners of the court were enclosed courts, forty long and thirty wide. All four corner courts had the same measurements.

23Around the inside of each of the four courts ran a row of stonework, with hearths for boiling built under the rows all around.

24He said to me, “These are the kitchens where those who minister at the temple are to boil the sacrifices of the people.”