Open English Translation EZE Chapter 45

45 When you cast lots to divide up the land as an inheritance for the tribes, you must make an offering of land to Yahweh. That offering will become a sacred part of the land: thirteen kilometres by ten kilometres in size.[fn] That entire area will become sacred. 2 Within that area, a 270m wide square area that will surround the sacred place will be left empty, with a further border around twenty-seven metres wide. 3 Inside that first, larger area, measure a rectangle thirteen kilometres by five kilometres for the sanctuary—the most sacred place. 4 It will be a sacred place in the nation for the priests who serve Yahweh, who come near Yahweh to serve him. It will be a place for their houses and a sacred area for the sacred place. 5 The other half which is also thirteen kilometres long and five kilometres wide will be for towns for the Levites who serve in the temple.

6 You’ll designate an area thirteen kilometres long by half a kilometre wide for the city that will be next to the area reserved for the holy place. This city will belong to all the Israeli people.

7 The leader’s land will be on both sides of the area reserved for the holy place and the city—on the west and the east. Its length will be the same as those portions that it’s parallel to. 8 That area will belong to Yisrael’s leader so the leaders won’t keep oppressing my people, but rather they’ll give the rest of the land to be divided among the tribes. 9 The master Yahweh says this: That’s plenty for you, leaders of Israel! Replace your violence and strife with justice and righteousness. Quit your evictions of my people. That is the master Yahweh’s declaration.

10 You all must use accurate scales and containers.[ref] 11 The baskets for measuring dry things and containers for measuring liquids (called an ‘efah’ for dry things and a ‘bath’ for liquids, both a tenth of the large 220 litre ‘homer’) must be the same volume—each must hold twenty-two litres. 12 For weights, the shekel weight must be ten grams. (Twenty ‘gerahs’ makes one shekel, then sixty shekels makes one ‘mina’.)

13 You all must present to the ruler one measure of wheat or barley for every sixty measures that you harvest, 14 one measure of olive oil for every one hundred measures that you all produce, 15 plus one sheep or goat from the flock for every two hundred animals from the watered regions of Yisrael to be used for any burnt offering or peace offering to make atonement for the people. That is the master Yahweh’s declaration.

16 All the people in the country will give that contribution to Yisrael’s leader. 17 It will be the leader’s responsibility to supply the animals for the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the drink offerings at the festivals and the new moon celebrations, and on the rest days—all the fixed festivals of the Israeli people. He will provide for the sin offerings, the grain offerings, the burnt offerings, and the peace offerings to make the Israeli people right with God.

18 The master Yahweh says this: On the first day of the first month of the year, you must take an unblemished bull from the herd and perform a sin offering to purify the temple. 19 The priest will take some of the blood of that sin offering and place it on the doorposts of the temple and on the four corners of the border of the altar, and on the doorposts of the gate to the inner court. 20 You will do this again on the seventh day of that month for each person’s accidental sin, or sin by ignorance. In that way you’ll make the temple pure in God’s sight.

21 Then on the fourteenth day of that first month, you all will have a seven-day celebration, when you’ll eat bread made without any rising agent.[ref] 22 That same day, the leader will prepare a bull as a sin offering for himself and for all the people in the country. 23 For the seven days of the celebration, the leader will prepare a burnt offering for Yahweh: Seven bulls and seven unblemished rams each day for seven days, and a male goat each day as a sin offering. 24 Then the leader will perform a food offering of twenty-two litres of flour with seven litres of olive oil for each bull and each ram.

25 On the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the year, at the ‘temporary shelters’ celebration, the leader will perform offerings on those seven days: Sin offerings, burnt offerings, food offerings, and offerings of oil.[ref]