Ezekiel 40:1-16

In the first month of the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, on the tenth day of the month, and nearly fourteen years after the Babylonians captured Jerusalem, on that day YAHWEH overpowered me and carried me away to Jerusalem. In an ecstatic vision from God, he carried me away to the land of Israel and put me down on a very high mountain. As I looked toward the south, there was a group of buildings that seemed to be a city. And when he brought me closer to the buildings, behold, I saw a man standing in the gateway. His appearance was shining and glistening like polished bronze. He held a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. The shining man said to me, “Son of man, look closely and listen carefully. Pay close attention to everything I show you, for I have brought you here to reveal these things to you. You must tell the people of Israel everything you see.” Behold, I saw an outer wall surrounding the whole area where the temple stood. And the shining man was holding a measuring reed, and its length was six long cubits, each cubit a forearm and a handbreadth. He measured the wall with the reed, and it was one reed high and one reed thick. He went into the opening of the gateway facing east, climbed the steps, and measured its threshold as one reed deep. Beyond the threshold was a corridor, which had rooms on each side for the guards. Each of the side rooms was square and measured one reed on each side. The space between the side rooms was five cubits. And the inside threshold of the gate leading to the portico facing the temple was one reed deep. Then he measured the porch of the gate on the inside. It was eight cubits deep, flanked by pillars two cubits thick. The porch opened onto the temple courtyard. On each side of the east gate there were three guardrooms, all three the same size, and the walls that separated them were the same size. He measured the width of the entrance as ten cubits and its length, thirteen cubits. And there was a low wall one cubit high in front of the guardrooms. Each of the guardrooms was six cubits square. Then he measured the width of the gate from the top back wall of one guardroom to the top back wall of the opposite one. It was twenty-five cubits straight across. He calculated the height of the porch, which led out to a courtyard, as sixty cubits high. From the outside wall of the gate to the far side of the porch, he measured as fifty cubits. On all the inside walls of the gateway were windows with narrow recesses all around. The walls of the guardrooms, the walls between them, and the walls of the porch likewise had windows all around. And there were palm trees carved on the inner walls of the corridor and on the doorways.