Ezekiel 41

1 Then the man took me into the big hall of the temple. 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.

41:1The big hall was the Holy Place. Ezekiel was a priest, so he could go into it.

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.’

41:4The man did not take Ezekiel into the Most Holy Place. Ezekiel was a priest but only the chief priest could go into this room.

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.

41:11These rooms were like the rooms in Solomon's temple. See 1 Kings 6:8-10.

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.