3. The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city and like the visions I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.
4. The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east.
5. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
6. While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone speaking to me from inside the temple.
7. He said: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever. The people of Israel will never again defile my holy name—neither they nor their kings—by their prostitution and the funeral offerings for their kings at their death.
8. When they placed their threshold next to my threshold and their doorposts beside my doorposts, with only a wall between me and them, they defiled my holy name by their detestable practices. So I destroyed them in my anger.
9. Now let them put away from me their prostitution and the funeral offerings for their kings, and I will live among them forever.
10. “Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider its perfection,
11. and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple—its arrangement, its exits and entrances—its whole design and all its regulations and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations.
12. “This is the law of the temple: All the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy. Such is the law of the temple.
13. “These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits, that cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth: Its gutter is a cubit deep and a cubit wide, with a rim of one span around the edge. And this is the height of the altar:
14. From the gutter on the ground up to the lower ledge that goes around the altar it is two cubits high, and the ledge is a cubit wide. From this lower ledge to the upper ledge that goes around the altar it is four cubits high, and that ledge is also a cubit wide.
15. Above that, the altar hearth is four cubits high, and four horns project upward from the hearth.
16. The altar hearth is square, twelve cubits long and twelve cubits wide.
17. The upper ledge also is square, fourteen cubits long and fourteen cubits wide. All around the altar is a gutter of one cubit with a rim of half a cubit. The steps of the altar face east.”
18. Then he said to me, “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: These will be the regulations for sacrificing burnt offerings and splashing blood against the altar when it is built: