Enter This Way, Leave That Way

The Lord’s Portion of the Land

45 “Now when you divide the land by lot for inheritance, you shall offer an allotment to the Lord, a holy portion of the land; the length shall be a length of twenty-five thousand cubits, and the width shall be twenty thousand. It shall be holy within its entire surrounding boundary. ² Out of this there shall be for the sanctuary a square encompassing five hundred by five hundred cubits, and fifty cubits for its open space round about. ³ From this area you shall measure a length of twenty-five thousand cubits and a width of ten thousand cubits; and in it shall be the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. ⁴ It shall be the holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to serve the Lord, and it shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary. ⁵ An area twenty-five thousand cubits in length and ten thousand in width shall be for the Levites, the ministers of the house, and for their possession cities in which to live.

⁶ “And you shall give the city possession of an area five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand cubits long, alongside the allotment of the holy portion; it shall be for the entire house of Israel.

Portion for the Prince

⁷ “And the prince shall have land on either side of the holy allotment and the property of the city, adjacent to the holy allotment and the property of the city, on the west side toward the west and on the east side toward the east, and in length comparable to one of the portions, from the west border to the east border. ⁸ This shall be his land as a possession in Israel; so My princes shall no longer oppress My people, but they shall give the rest of the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.”

⁹ ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Enough, you princes of Israel; get rid of violence and destruction, and practice justice and righteousness. Revoke your evictions of My people,” declares the Lord God.

¹⁰ “You shall have accurate balances, an accurate ephah, and an accurate bath. ¹¹ The ephah and the bath shall be the same quantity, so that the bath will contain a tenth of a homer, and the ephah a tenth of a homer; their standard shall be according to the homer. ¹² And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels shall be your mina.

¹³ “This is the offering that you shall offer: a sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat; a sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley; ¹⁴ and the prescribed portion of oil (namely, the bath of oil), a tenth of a bath from each kor (which is ten baths or a homer, for ten baths are a homer); ¹⁵ and one sheep from each flock of two hundred from the watering places of Israel—for a grain offering, for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings, to make atonement for them,” declares the Lord God.¹⁶ “All the people of the land shall give to this offering for the prince in Israel. ¹⁷ And it shall be the prince’s part to provide the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the drink offerings, at the feasts, on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths, at all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel; he shall provide the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.”

¹⁸ ‘This is what the Lord God says: “In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take a bull without blemish and cleanse the sanctuary from sin. ¹⁹ And the priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering and put it on the door posts of the house, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the posts of the gate of the inner courtyard. ²⁰ And you shall do this on the seventh day of the month for everyone who does wrong inadvertently or is naive; so you shall make atonement for the house.

²¹ “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. ²² On that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a bull as a sin offering. ²³ And during the seven days of the feast he shall provide as a burnt offering to the Lord seven bulls and seven rams without blemish on every day of the seven days, and a male goat daily as a sin offering. ²⁴ And he shall provide as a grain offering an ephah with a bull, an ephah with a ram, and a hin of oil with an ephah. ²⁵ In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast, he shall provide like these, seven days for the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil.”

The Prince’s Offerings

46 ‘This is what the Lord God says: “The gate of the inner courtyard facing east shall be shut for the six working days; but it shall be opened on the Sabbath day and opened on the day of the new moon. ² The prince shall enter by way of the porch of the gate from outside and stand by the post of the gate. Then the priests shall provide his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate and then go out; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.³ The people of the land shall also worship at the doorway of that gate before the Lord on the Sabbaths and on the new moons. ⁴ The burnt offering which the prince shall offer to the Lord on the Sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish; ⁵ and the grain offering shall be an ephah with the ram, and the grain offering with the lambs as much as he is able to give, and a hin of oil with an ephah. ⁶ On the day of the new moon he shall offer a bull without blemish, and six lambs and a ram, which shall be without blemish. ⁷ And he shall provide a grain offering, an ephah with the bull and an ephah with the ram, and with the lambs as much as he is able, and a hin of oil with an ephah. ⁸ When the prince enters, he shall go in by way of the porch of the gate, and go out by the same way. ⁹ But when the people of the land come before the Lord at the appointed feasts, one who enters by way of the north gate to worship shall go out by way of the south gate. And one who enters by way of the south gate shall go out by way of the north gate. No one shall return by way of the gate by which he entered, but shall go straight out. ¹⁰ And when they go in, the prince shall go in among them; and when they go out, he shall go out.

¹¹ “At the festivals and the appointed feasts, the grain offering shall be an ephah with a bull and an ephah with a ram, and with the lambs as much as one is able to give, and a hin of oil with an ephah. ¹² And when the prince provides a voluntary offering, a burnt offering, or peace offerings as a voluntary offering to the Lord, the gate facing east shall be opened for him. And he shall provide his burnt offering and his peace offerings as he does on the Sabbath day. Then he shall go out, and the gate shall be shut after he goes out.

¹³ “And you shall provide a lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord daily; morning by morning you shall provide it. ¹⁴ You shall also provide a grain offering with it morning by morning, a sixth of an ephah and a third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour, a grain offering to the Lord continually by a permanent ordinance. ¹⁵ So they shall provide the lamb, the grain offering, and the oil, morning by morning, as a continual burnt offering.”

¹⁶ ‘This is what the Lord God says: “If the prince gives a gift from his inheritance to any of his sons, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance.¹⁷ But if he gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his until the year of release; then it shall return to the prince. His inheritance shall be only his sons’; it shall belong to them. ¹⁸ And the prince shall not take from the people’s inheritance, depriving them of their property; he shall give his sons inheritance from his own property, so that My people will not be scattered, anyone from his property.”’”

The Boiling Places

¹⁹ Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests, which faced north; and behold, a place was there at the extreme rear toward the west. ²⁰ And he said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them out into the outer courtyard and transfer holiness to the people.”

²¹ Then he brought me out into the outer courtyard and led me across to the four corners of the courtyard; and behold, in every corner of the courtyard there was a small courtyard. ²² In the four corners of the courtyard there were enclosed courtyards, forty cubits long and thirty wide; these four in the corners were the same size.²³ And there was a row of masonry all around in them, around the four of them, and cooking hearths were made under the rows all around. ²⁴ Then he said to me, “These are the cooking places where the ministers of the house shall cook the sacrifices of the people.”