Eze 45 | EE | STEP | ‘You must separate the land into different parts for each tribe. When you do this, you must give one part to the LORD. Make it twelve and a half (12½) kilometres long and ten (10) kilometres wide. All of this land will be holy.

Ezekiel 45

The LORD separates the land into different parts

1 ‘You must separate the land into different parts for each tribe. When you do this, you must give one part to the LORD. Make it twelve and a half (12½) kilometres long and ten (10) kilometres wide. All of this land will be holy. 2 You will keep a piece of this land, two hundred and fifty (250) metres long and two hundred and fifty (250) metres wide for the temple. You must keep an empty space twenty-five (25) metres wide all round the temple. 3 Half of this space that measures twelve and a half (12½) kilometres by five (5) kilometres will contain the temple. This will be the most holy part of the land. 4 The priests will have this holy part of the country to work for the LORD in his temple. They will build their houses there as well as the temple. 5 Some Levites work in the temple. They will own the other half of the land. There they will build their towns to live in.

6 You must give a piece of land to the city. It is the part next to the holy part. This part will measure twelve and a half (12½) kilometres long, and two and a half (2½) kilometres wide. Any of Israel’s people can live there.

7 You must keep some land for the king. His land will include that from the west of the holy land to the sea. From the east, his land will include all the land to the country’s east edge. So his land will be as long as a tribe‘s part of the land. 8 This is the part of the land that will belong to the king who rules Israel. Then he will no longer try to make the people do what he wants. And they can all live in their own parts of the country. I will give parts to each of them.

9 “Stop arguing and fighting, you leaders of Israel. You have done enough bad things!” says the LORD God. “Do the things that are right and good. Stop taking away the things that belong to my people.” That is what the LORD God says. 10 “You must use correct measures for size and weight. 11 The ephah for dry things must be the same as the bath for wet things. Ten ephahs will be equal to one homer. Ten baths will be equal to one homer. 12 Twenty (20) gerahs will be equal to one shekel. Sixty (60) shekels will be equal to one mina (about 24 ounces or 660 grams).

Offerings and holy days

13 You must take a sixth (1/6) of a homer of grain to offer as a special gift. 14 The correct oil gift is a tenth (1/10) of a bath from each cor (a cor is equal to 10 baths or one homer). 15 You must take one sheep from every two hundred (200) sheep that live in the green land in Israel. You will use these gifts to offer to me. They are grain offerings, animals to burn and fellowship offerings. These are sacrifices so that I can forgive your sin.” I, the LORD God, say that you must do this.

16 “All Israel’s people must bring these offerings to the king in Israel.” This is what the LORD God says: 17 “The king must give the animals for the burnt sacrifices. He must give the grain and wine to offer at the people’s feasts. He must give them for the New Moon feasts and the Sabbaths. He must give them the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. These are to pay for the sin of Israel’s people.

18 This is what the LORD God says: On the first day of the first month you must take a male cow to make the holy place clean. The animal must not have anything wrong with it. 19 The priest will take some of the blood of this sin offering. He will put some blood on the posts of the temple doors. And he must put blood on the corners of the altar. And he will put some on the gate posts of the inside temple yard. 20 You must also do this on the seventh (7th) day of the month. A person might sin by mistake and this will make the temple clean from their sin.

21 On the fourteenth (14th) day of the first month you must have a feast. You will have a feast for seven (7) days. It is the Passover feast. And for that time you must not eat any bread that you have made with yeast. ^{▼▼45:21 During the Passover, the Israelites remember how God brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 12). The Passover was on the 14th day of the first month. This month is about March to April in our calendar.}

22 On that day the king must give a male cow as a sin offering. It is an offering for himself and for all the people. 23 Every day of the feast he must give seven (7) male cows and seven (7) male sheep for burnt offerings to the LORD. He must also give a male goat each day for a sin offering. None of the animals can have anything wrong with it. 24 The king must give an ephah of grain with each cow and an ephah with each sheep. He must give a hin of oil with each ephah.

25 You will have a feast for seven (7) days. It will begin on the fifteenth (15th) day of the seventh (7th) month. The king must give the same offerings for these seven (7) days.”’ ^{▼▼45:25 A homer measured about a hundred and seventy-five (175) litres (40 gallons). So a bath or an ephah would be about seventeen and a half (17½) litres (4 gallons). A hin was about four (4) litres (1 gallon). In the days of Ezekiel a shekel was about 0.4 ounces (11 grams).}