The Daily Audio Bible

The south gate of the inside yard

²⁸ The man took me through the south gate into the inside yard. He measured the gate. It was the same size as the gates in the outside wall. ²⁹ The rooms for the guards, the walls between them and theentrance room were the same size as the ones at the other gates. There were windows along its walls and in the entrance room. As at the other gates, the whole entrance was 25 metres long and 12½ metres wide. ³⁰ The entrance rooms around the inside yard were 12½ metres wide and 2½ metres long. ³¹ The entrance room of this gate opened towards the outside yard. There were pictures of palm trees on the walls of the passage. Eight steps went up to this gate.

The east gate of the inside yard

³² The man took me to the east side the inside yard. He measured the gate. It was the same size as the other gates. ³³ The rooms for the guards, the walls between them and theentrance room were the same size as the ones at the other gates. There were windows along its walls and in the entrance room. The whole entrance was 25 metres long and 12½ metres wide. ³⁴ The entrance room of this gate opened towards the outside yard. There were pictures of palm trees on the walls of the passage. Eight steps went up to this gate.

The north gate of the inside yard

³⁵ Then the man took me to the north gate. He measured it. It was the same size as the other gates, ³⁶ with rooms for the guards, their walls and an entrance room with windows. The whole entrance was 25 metres long and 12½ metres wide. ³⁷ The door of the entrance room opened towards the outside yard. There were pictures of palm trees on the walls of the passage, on both sides. Eight steps went up to this gate.

Buildings near the north gate

³⁸ There was a small building joined to the entrance room of the north gate. There was a door between this building and the entrance room. In that building, the priests washed the dead bodies of animals for burnt offerings. ³⁹ In the entrance room there were four tables, two on each side of the room. They killed the animals for sacrifices on these tables. They were animals for burnt offerings and also for sin offerings and for guilt offerings.

⁴⁰ There were four more tables outside the entrance room of the north gate. Two tables were on each side of the steps at the entrance. ⁴¹ So there were eight tables on which they killed animals for sacrifices. Four tables were in the yard outside the entrance. Four tables were inside the entrance room. ⁴² They had used stone to make four tables for the burnt offerings. These tables were 50 centimetres high. Their tops were 75 centimetres square. They put the knives and the other tools that they used to kill the animals on these tables. ⁴³ They put the meat for the offerings on the stone tables. There were hooks all around the inside walls of the room. Each hook was 7½ centimetres long.

⁴⁴ There were two rooms for singers that had doors to the inside yard. One was beside the north gate and its door opened towards the south. The other room was beside the south gate and its door opened towards the north. ⁴⁵ The man said to me, ‘The room beside the north gate is for the priests who take care of the temple. ⁴⁶ The room beside the south gate is for the priests who serve God at the altar. These priests are descendants of Zadok.^[a] They are the only descendants of Levi who may come near to the Lord to serve him.’

⁴⁷ The man measured the inside yard. It was square, 50 metres long and 50 metres wide. There was an altar in front of the temple.

The temple building

⁴⁸ The man took me into the entrance room of the temple building. He measured the walls on each side of the entrance. They were 2½ metres thick. The entrance was 7 metres wide. The walls on each side of the entrance were 1½ metres wide. ⁴⁹ The entrance room was 10 metres wide and 6 metres long. Steps went up to the entrance room. There were two pillars, one on each side of the entrance.

41 Then the man took me into the big hall of the temple.^[b] He measured the walls on each side of the entrance. They were 3 metres thick. ² The entrance itself was 5 metres wide. The walls on each side were 2½ metres wide. The big hall was 20 metres long and 10 metres wide.

³ Then he went into the inside room. He measured the walls at the entrance. They were 1 metre thick. The entrance was 3 metres wide. The walls on each side were 3½ metres wide. ⁴ He measured the inside room. It was 10 metres long and 10 metres wide. It was at the back of the big hall. The man said to me, ‘This is the Most Holy Place.’^[c]

⁵ Then the man measured the wall of the temple. It was 3 metres thick. There were small rooms along the outside of the wall, all around the temple. Each room was 2 metres wide. ⁶ The side rooms were on three levels. Each level had 30 rooms. The temple's wall at each level was less thick than the wall below. So the wall itself held up each level of rooms. They did not have to fix the side rooms into the temple's wall. ⁷ The side rooms at each level were wider than the rooms on the level below them, because the temple's wall was less thick. There was a set of stairs that went from the lowest level to the middle level and up to the top level.

⁸ I saw that there was a stone base all around the temple. The side rooms stood on this base as their foundation. It was 3 metres high. ^9-10 The outside wall of the side rooms was 2½ metres thick. There was an open space between these rooms and the rooms that the priests used. It was 10 metres wide, all around the temple building. ¹¹ There were two doors for the side rooms. One door opened towards the north. The other door opened towards the south. They opened into a space that was 2½ metres wide.^[d]

¹² There was a large building at the west side of the temple yard. It was 37 metres wide and 47 metres long. Its walls were 2½ metres thick.

¹³ Then the man measured the outside of the temple building. It was 50 metres long. He measured from the back of the temple across the open space to the back wall of the large building. That was also 50 metres. ¹⁴ He measured the front of the temple building and the open space on each side. That was 50 metres too. ¹⁵ He measured the building at the back of the temple yard, on the west side. That was also 50 metres, including the side rooms at each end.

Wooden boards covered the walls of the big hall, the inside room and the entrance room of the temple. ¹⁶ The boards covered the walls from the floor up to the windows, and above the windows. They used wood to make the edges of the windows. They also covered the windows. ^17-18 Workers had cut pictures in the wood above the doors and all over the walls. They were pictures of palm trees and cherubs. There was a picture of a palm tree between each cherub. They covered all the inside walls of the temple. Each cherub had two faces. ¹⁹ A human face looked towards the palm tree on one side. A lion's face looked towards the palm tree on the other side. Workers had cut these pictures on the walls around the inside of the whole temple building. ²⁰ The pictures of cherubs and palm trees covered all the walls, from the floor up to above the doors.

²¹ There were square posts on each side of the entrance to the temple's big hall. The entrance to the Most Holy Place seemed the same.

²² There was an altar that was made of wood. It was 1½ metres high and 1 metre wide on each side. Its corners, its sides and its base were all made of wood. The man said to me, ‘This is the table that stands here in front of the Lord.’

²³ The big hall of the temple and the Most Holy Place both had doors that were in two parts. ²⁴ The doors were fixed on both sides of each entrance and they opened in the middle. ²⁵ Workers had cut pictures on the doors of the big hall. They were pictures of palm trees and cherubs, like the pictures on the walls. There was a roof over the outside of the door to the entrance room. It was made of wood. ²⁶ The entrance room had narrow windows in the walls on each side. The windows had pictures of palm trees on each side. Workers had cut shapes of palm trees on its walls. The side rooms around the temple also had roofs over the outside of their doors.

Do not turn away from God

4 You fight and quarrel among yourselves. Do you know why that happens? It is because of the troubles in your thoughts. You want to do bad things that you think will make you happy. ² You want to have something for yourself, but you do not get what you want. You even kill other people. You try to take things that are not yours. But you cannot get them. So you fight and you quarrel with each other. But you do not have these things because you do not ask God for them. ³ Even when you do ask God, you do not receive anything. That is because you ask for the wrong reason. You just want to use these things to make yourselves happy.

⁴ You are turning away from God, like a woman who is not faithful to her husband. You choose to be friends with people who are against God. So you yourselves become enemies of God. You should know that! ⁵ The Bible says, ‘God has caused his Spirit to live in us. He wants very much to keep us for himself.’ Do you think that is not true? ⁶ But God will be very kind to us and he will help us. That is why the Bible says, ‘God is against those people who think that they are important. But he is kind to people who do not feel important.’ ⁷ So obey God's authority. Be strong against the Devil and he will run away from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Be clean in the way that you live. Stop doing wrong things. Make your minds clean. You cannot love sin and love God at the same time. ⁹ Be sorry about your sins and weep. Stop laughing and instead be sad. Do not be happy but be very upset.

¹⁰ Be humble in front of the Lord God. Then he will lift you up to a good place.

¹¹ My Christian friends, do not say bad things against each other. If you speak against another believer, you are really speaking against God's Law. If you judge another believer, then you are judging the law too. When you do that, you are not obeying the Law. You are giving yourself authority to decide what the Law says. ¹² God is the one who gave his Law to people. Only he has the authority to judge whether people have done what is right. Only he can decide to save people or to destroy them. So you must not judge your friends. You do not have that authority.

Trust God every day

¹³ Some of you say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will stay there for a year. We will buy and sell things, and we will become rich.’ If you say things like that, listen to me. ¹⁴ You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a cloud which appears for a short time and then it quickly goes away. ¹⁵ So what you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord agrees and we are still alive, then we will do this or that.’ ¹⁶ But instead, you talk about what you have decided to do. You speak as if you have the power to make it happen. It is wrong to speak like that.

¹⁷ So you know the right thing that you ought to do. But if you know that and you do not do the right thing, then you have done a wrong thing.