Ezekiel 44

¹ He brought me back to the outer east gate of the sanctuary. It was shut.

² Yahweh said to me, ‘This gate will be kept shut. No one will open it or go through it, since Yahweh the God of Israel has been through it. And so it must be kept shut.

³ The prince himself, however, may sit there to take his meal in the presence of Yahweh. He is to enter and leave through the porch of the gate.’

⁴ He led me through the north gate to the front of the Temple. I looked; I saw the glory of Yahweh filling the Temple of Yahweh, and I prostrated myself.

⁵ Yahweh said to me, ‘Son of man, pay attention, look carefully and listen closely to everything I explain; these are all the arrangements of the Temple of Yahweh and all its laws. Be careful about which men are admitted to the Temple and which are excluded from the sanctuary.

⁶ And say to the rebels of the House of Israel, “The Lord Yahweh says this: You have gone beyond all bounds with all your filthy practices, House of Israel,

⁷ by admitting aliens, uncircumcised in heart and body, to frequent my sanctuary and profane my Temple, while you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and break my covenant with all your filthy practices.

⁸ Instead of performing your duties to me in the Holy Place, you have deputed someone else to perform your duties in my sanctuary.

⁹ The Lord Yahweh says this: No alien, uncircumcised in heart and body, is to enter my sanctuary, none of those aliens living among the Israelites.

¹⁰ As regards the Levites who abandoned me when Israel strayed far from me to follow its idols, they must bear the weight of their own sin.

¹¹ They are to be servants in my sanctuary, responsible for guarding the Temple gates and serving the Temple. They will kill the holocaust and the sacrifice for the people, and hold themselves at the service of the people.

¹² Since they used to be at their service in front of their idols and were an occasion of sin to the House of Israel, very well, I raise my hand against them – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks; they must bear the weight of their sin.

¹³ They are never to approach me again to perform the priestly office in my presence, or to touch my holy things and my most holy things; they must bear the disgrace of their filthy practices.

¹⁴ I shall give them the responsibility of working in the Temple; I shall make them responsible for serving it and for everything to be done in it.

¹⁵ As regards the levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who did their duty to me in the sanctuary when the Israelites strayed far from me, they may still approach me to serve me; they may stand in my presence to offer me the fat and blood – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.

¹⁶ They may enter my sanctuary and approach my table to serve me; they may perform my liturgy.

¹⁷ Once they enter the gates of the inner court, they are to wear linen vestments; they are to wear no wool when they serve inside the gates of the inner court and in the Temple.

¹⁸ They are to wear linen caps on their heads, and linen breeches about their loins; they are not to wear belts of. . .

¹⁹ When they go out to the people in the outer court, they are to remove the vestments in which they have performed the liturgy and leave them in the rooms of the Holy Place, and put on other clothes, so as not to hallow the people with their vestments.

²⁰ They are neither to shave their heads nor to let their hair grow long, but must cut their hair to a reasonable length.

²¹ No priest is to drink wine on the day he enters the inner court.

²² They are not to marry widows or divorced women, but only virgins of the race of Israel; they may, however, marry widows, if the widow of a priest.

²³ They are to teach my people the difference between what is sacred and what is profane and make them understand the difference between what is clean and what is unclean.

²⁴ They are to be judges in disputes; they must judge in the spirit of my statutes; they must follow my laws and ordinances at all my feasts and keep my sabbaths holy.

²⁵ They are not to go near a dead man, in case they become unclean, except in these permissible cases, that is, for father, mother, daughter, son, brother or unmarried sister.

²⁶ After one of them has been purified, seven days must elapse;

²⁷ then, on the day when he enters the Holy Place – enters the inner court to minister in the Holy Place – he is to offer his sacrifice for sin – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.

²⁸ They are to have no inheritance; I myself will be their inheritance. You are to give them no patrimony in Israel; I myself will be their patrimony.

²⁹ Their food is to be the oblation, the sacrifice for sin and the sacrifice of reparation. Everything in Israel put under the ban shall be for them.

³⁰ The best of all your first-fruits, of every sort of due and of all that you offer, is to go to the priests; and the best of your dough you are also to give to the priests, so that a blessing may rest on your house.

³¹ Priests are not to eat the flesh of anything that has died a natural death or been savaged, neither of a bird nor of any other creature.