GNT: The Good News Translation | GNB: The Good News Bible
[40:28] The man took me through the south gateway into the inner courtyard. He measured the gateway, and it was the same size as the gateways in the outer wall.
[40:31] Its entrance room faced the other courtyard, and palm trees were carved on the walls along the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.
[40:32] The man took me through the east gateway into the inner courtyard. He measured the gateway, and it was the same size as the others.
[40:33] Its guardrooms, its entrance room, and its inner walls measured the same as those in the other gateways. There were windows all around, and in the entrance room also. The total length was 84 feet and the width 42 feet.
[40:34] The entrance room faced the outer courtyard. Palm trees were carved on the walls along the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.
[40:35] Then the man took me to the north gateway. He measured it, and it was the same size as the others.
[40:36] Like them, it also had guardrooms, decorated inner walls, an entrance room, and windows all around. Its total length was 84 feet and its width 42 feet.
[40:37] The entrance room faced the outer courtyard. Palm trees were carved on the walls along the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.
[40:38] In the outer courtyard there was an annex attached to the inner gateway on the north side. It opened into the entrance room that faced the courtyard, and there they washed the carcasses of the animals to be burned whole as sacrifices.
[40:39] In this entrance room there were four tables, two on each side of the room. It was on these tables that they killed the animals to be offered as sacrifices, either to be burned whole or to be sacrifices for sin or as repayment offerings.
[40:40] Outside the room there were four similar tables, two on either side of the entrance of the north gate.
[40:41] Altogether there were eight tables on which the animals to be sacrificed were killed: four inside the room and four out in the courtyard.
[40:42] The four tables in the annex, used to prepare the offerings to be burned whole, were of cut stone. They were 20 inches high, and their tops were 30 inches square. All the equipment used in killing the sacrificial animals was kept on these tables.
[40:43] Ledges 3 inches wide ran around the edge of the tables. All the meat to be offered in sacrifice was placed on the tables.
[40:44] Then he brought me into the inner court. There were two rooms opening on the inner court, one facing south beside the north gateway and the other facing north beside the south gateway.
[40:45] The man told me that the room which faced south was for the priests who served in the Temple,
[40:46] and the room which faced north was for the priests who served at the altar. All the priests are descended from Zadok; they are the only members of the tribe of Levi who are permitted to go into the Lord's presence to serve him.
[40:47] The man measured the inner courtyard, and it was 168 feet square. The Temple was on the west side, and in front of it was an altar.
[40:48] Then he took me into the entrance room of the Temple. He measured the entranceway: it was 9 feet deep and 24 feet wide, with walls 5 feet thick on either side.
[40:49] Steps led up to the entrance room, which was 34 feet wide and 20 feet deep. There were two columns, one on each side of the entrance.
[41:1] Next, the man took me into the central room, the Holy Place. He measured the passageway into it: it was 10 feet deep
[41:2] and 18 feet wide, with walls 8 feet thick on either side. He measured the room itself: it was 68 feet long and 34 feet wide.
[41:3] Then he went to the innermost room. He measured the passageway into it: it was 3 feet deep and 10 feet wide, with walls on either side 12 feet thick.
[41:4] He measured the room itself, and it was 34 feet square. This room was beyond the central room. Then he said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.”
[41:5] The man measured the thickness of the inner wall of the Temple building, and it was 10 feet. Against this wall, all around the Temple, was a series of small rooms 7 feet wide.
[41:6] These rooms were in three stories, with thirty rooms on each floor. The Temple's outer wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without being anchored into it.
[41:7] And so the Temple walls, when seen from the outside, seemed to have the same thickness all the way to the top. Against the Temple's outer wall, on the outside of the rooms, two wide stairways were built, so that it was possible to go from the lower story to the middle and the upper stories.
[41:12] At the far end of the open space on the west side of the Temple there was a building 150 feet long and 116 feet wide; its walls were 9 feet thick all around.
[41:13] The man measured the outside of the Temple, and it was 168 feet long. And from the back of the Temple, across the open space to the far side of the building to the west, the distance was also 168 feet.
[41:14] The distance across the front of the Temple, including the open space on either side, was also 168 feet.
[41:15] He measured the length of the building to the west, including its galleries on both sides, and it was also 168 feet.
[41:15] The entrance room of the Temple, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place
[41:16] were all paneled with wood from the floor to the windows. These windows could be covered.
[41:17] The inside walls of the Temple, up as high as above the doors, were completely covered with carvings
[41:18] of palm trees and winged creatures. Palm trees alternated with creatures, one following the other, all the way around the room. Each creature had two faces:
[41:19] a human face that was turned toward the palm tree on one side, and a lion's face that was turned toward the tree on the other side. It was like this all around the wall,
[41:20] from the floor to above the doors.
[41:21] The doorposts of the Holy Place were square.
[41:21] In front of the entrance of the Most Holy Place there was something that looked like
[41:22] a wooden altar. It was 5 feet high and 4 feet wide. Its corner posts, its base, and its sides were all made of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table which stands in the presence of the Lord.”