The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday November 20, 2018 (NIV)

The Inner Courtyard: The South Gate

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. ^29-30 Its guardrooms, its entrance room, and its inner walls were the same size as those in the other gateways. There were also windows in the rooms of this gateway. The total length was 84 feet and the width 42 feet. 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.

The Inner Courtyard: The East Gate

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. 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. 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.

The Inner Courtyard: The North Gate

³⁵ Then the man took me to the north gateway. He measured it, and it was the same size as the others. 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. ³⁷ The entrance room^[a] faced the outer courtyard. Palm trees were carved on the walls along the passageway. Eight steps led up to this gate.

Buildings Near the North Gate

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. 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 Outside the room there were four similar tables, two on either side of the entrance of the north gate. 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. 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. 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.^[b]

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.^{[c] 45} The man told me that the room which faced south was for the priests who served in the Temple, 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.

The Inner Courtyard and the Temple Building

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. 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,^[d] with walls 5 feet thick on either side. ⁴⁹ Steps led up to the entrance room, which was 34 feet wide and 20 feet deep.^[e] There were two columns, one on each side of the entrance.

41 Next, the man took me into the central room, the Holy Place. He measured the passageway into it: it was 10 feet deep^{[f] 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.

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.^{[g] 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.”

The Rooms Built against the Temple Walls

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. 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. 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.^{[h] 8-11} The outside wall of these rooms was 8 feet thick; there was one door into the rooms on the north side of the Temple, and one into those on the south side. I saw that there was a terrace 8 feet wide around the Temple; it was 10 feet above the ground and it was level with the foundation of the rooms by the Temple walls. Between the terrace and the buildings used by the priests there was an open space 34 feet across, along the sides of the Temple.

The Building on the West

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.

The Total Measurements of the Temple Building

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. ¹⁴ The distance across the front of the Temple, including the open space on either side, was also 168 feet. ¹⁵ He measured the length of the building to the west, including its galleries on both sides, and it was also 168 feet.

Details of the Temple Building

The entrance room of the Temple, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place ¹⁶ were all paneled with wood from the floor to the windows. These windows could be covered.^{[i] 17} The inside walls of the Temple, up as high as above the doors, were completely covered with carvings^{[j] 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: 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, ²⁰ from the floor to above the doors. ²¹ The doorposts of the Holy Place were square.

The Wooden Altar

In front of the entrance of the Most Holy Place there was something that looked like ²² a wooden altar. It was 5 feet high and 4 feet wide. Its corner posts, its base,^[k] 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.”

The Doors

²³ There was a door at the end of the passageway to the Holy Place and one also at the end of the passageway to the Most Holy Place. ²⁴ They were double doors that swung open in the middle. ²⁵ There were palm trees and winged creatures carved on the doors of the Holy Place, just as there were on the walls. And there was a wooden covering over the outside of the doorway of the entrance room. ²⁶ At the sides of this room there were windows, and the walls were decorated with palm trees.^[l]

Friendship with the World

4 Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. ² You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it. ³ And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures. ⁴ Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy. ⁵ Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires.”^{[a] 6 (A)}But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁷ So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you. ⁸ Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites! ⁹ Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom! ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Warning against Judging One Another

¹¹ Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. ¹² God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?

Warning against Boasting

^13 (B)Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.” ¹⁴ You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. ¹⁵ What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.

¹⁷ So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.

³ Someone in authority who oppresses poor people is like a driving rain that destroys the crops.

⁴ If you have no regard for the law, you are on the side of the wicked; but if you obey it, you are against them.

⁵ Evil people do not know what justice is, but those who worship the Lord understand it well.