37. Its porch faced the outer courtyard. Carvings of palm trees were on its inner walls on each side, and its stairway had eight steps.
38. There was a room with a door that opened onto the porch of the inner north gateway. In this room the priests washed animals for the burnt offerings.
39. There were two tables on each side of the porch, on which animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and penalty offerings were killed.
40. Outside, by each side wall of the porch, at the entrance to the north gateway, were two more tables.
41. So there were four tables inside the gateway, and four tables outside. In all there were eight tables on which the priests killed animals for sacrifices.
42. There were four tables made of cut stone for the burnt offering. These tables were about three feet long, three feet wide, and about two feet high. On these tables the priests put their tools which they used to kill animals for burnt offerings and the other sacrifices.
43. Double shelves three inches wide were put up on all the walls. The flesh for the offering was put on the tables.
44. There were two rooms in the inner courtyard. One was beside the north gateway and faced south. The other room was beside the south gateway and faced north.
45. The man said to me, “The room which faces south is for the priests who serve in the Temple area,
46. while the room that faces north is for the priests who serve at the altar. This second group of priests are descendants of Zadok, the only descendants of Levi who can come near the Lord to serve him.”
47. The man measured the inner courtyard. It was a square—one hundred seventy-five feet long and one hundred seventy-five feet wide. The altar was in front of the Temple.
48. The man brought me to the porch of the Temple and measured each side wall of the porch. Each was about nine feet thick. The doorway was twenty-four and one-half feet wide. The side walls of the doorway were each about five feet wide.
49. The porch was thirty-five feet long and twenty-one feet wide, with ten steps leading up to it. Pillars were by the side walls, one on each side of the entrance.