Ezekiel 46

¹ Thus speaks the Lord Yahweh: The east gate of the inner court must be kept shut for the six working days. On the sabbath day it is to be opened, as also on the day of the New Moon;

² and the prince is to go in through the porch of the outer gate and take his position by the doorposts of the gate. The priests must then offer his holocaust and his communion sacrifice. He must prostrate himself on the threshold of the gate and go out, and the gate is not to be shut again until the evening.

³ The people of the country are to prostrate themselves in the presence of Yahweh at the entrance to the gate on sabbaths and days of the New Moon.

⁴ The holocaust offered to Yahweh by the prince on the sabbath day is to consist of six unblemished lambs and one unblemished ram,

⁵ and an oblation of one ephah for the ram, and such oblation as he pleases for the lambs, and a hin of oil for every ephah.

⁶ On the day of the New Moon it is to consist of a young bull without blemish, six unblemished lambs and one unblemished ram,

⁷ when he must make an oblation of one ephah for the bull and one ephah for the ram, and what he pleases for the lambs, and a hin of oil for every ephah.

⁸ When the prince goes in, he is to enter by the porch of the gate, and he must leave by the same way.

⁹ When the people of the country come into the presence of Yahweh at the solemn festivals, those who have come in by the north gate to prostrate themselves are to go out by the south gate, and those who have come in by the south gate are to go out by the north gate; no one is to turn back to leave through the gate by which he entered but is to go out on the opposite side.

¹⁰ The prince is to come with them, coming in like them and going out like them.

¹¹ On feast days and solemn festivals the oblation must be one ephah for every bull, one ephah for every ram, what he pleases for the lambs, and a hin of oil for every ephah.

¹² When the prince offers Yahweh a voluntary holocaust or a voluntary communion sacrifice, the east gate is to be opened for him, and he is to offer his holocaust and his communion sacrifice as he does on the sabbath day; when he has gone out, the gate is to be shut after him.

¹³ Every day he must offer an unblemished lamb one year old as a holocaust to Yahweh; he must offer this every morning.

¹⁴ Every morning in addition he is to offer an oblation of one sixth of an ephah and one third of a hin of oil, for mixing with the flour. This is the oblation to Yahweh, an eternal law fixed in perpetuity.

¹⁵ The lamb, is the oblation and the oil are to be offered morning after morning for ever.

¹⁶ The Lord Yahweh says this. If the prince presents his sons with part of his hereditary portion, the gift is to pass into the ownership of his sons, and become their hereditary property.

¹⁷ If, however, he presents part of his hereditary portion to one of his servants, it shall only belong to the man until the year of liberation[*a] and is then to revert to the prince. Only his sons may retain his hereditary portion.

¹⁸ The prince may not take any part of the people’s hereditary portion and thus rob them of their rightful possessions; he must provide the patrimony of his sons out of his own property, so that no member of my people is robbed of his rightful possessions.”‘

¹⁹ He took me through the entrance at the side of the north gate that leads to the rooms of the Holy Place set apart for the priests. And there before us, to the west, was a space at the end.

²⁰ He said to me, ‘This is where the priests are to boil the slaughtered animals for the sacrifice for sin and the sacrifice of reparation, and where they are to bake the oblation, without having to carry them into the outer court and so run the risk of hallowing the people’.

²¹ He took me into the outer court and led me to each of its four corners; in each corner of the outer court was a compound;

²² in other words, the four corners of the court contained four small compounds, forty cubits by thirty, all four being the same size.

²³ Each of the four was enclosed by a wall, with hearths all round the bottom of the wall.

²⁴ He said, ‘These are the kitchens where the Temple servants are to boil the sacrifices offered by the people’.