The Rooms for the Priests

42 Then the man led me northward into the outer court and brought me to the rooms^(A) opposite the temple courtyard^(B) and opposite the outer wall on the north side.^{(C) 2} The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide.^{[a] 3} Both in the section twenty cubits^[b] from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery^(D) faced gallery at the three levels.^{(E) 4} In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits^[c] long.^[d] Their doors were on the north.^{(F) 5} Now the upper rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. ⁶ The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. ⁷ There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. ⁸ While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the sanctuary was a hundred cubits long. ⁹ The lower rooms had an entrance^(G) on the east side as one enters them from the outer court.

¹⁰ On the south side^[e] along the length of the wall of the outer court, adjoining the temple courtyard^(H) and opposite the outer wall, were rooms^{(I) 11} with a passageway in front of them. These were like the rooms on the north; they had the same length and width, with similar exits and dimensions. Similar to the doorways on the north ¹² were the doorways of the rooms on the south. There was a doorway at the beginning of the passageway that was parallel to the corresponding wall extending eastward, by which one enters the rooms.

¹³ Then he said to me, “The north^(J) and south rooms^(K) facing the temple courtyard^(L) are the priests’ rooms, where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will put the most holy offerings—the grain offerings,^(M) the sin offerings^[f](N) and the guilt offerings^(O)—for the place is holy.^{(P) 14} Once the priests enter the holy precincts, they are not to go into the outer court until they leave behind the garments^(Q) in which they minister, for these are holy. They are to put on other clothes before they go near the places that are for the people.^(R)”

¹⁵ When he had finished measuring what was inside the temple area, he led me out by the east gate^(S) and measured the area all around: ¹⁶ He measured the east side with the measuring rod; it was five hundred cubits.^{[g][h] 17} He measured the north side; it was five hundred cubits^[i] by the measuring rod. ¹⁸ He measured the south side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. ¹⁹ Then he turned to the west side and measured; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. ²⁰ So he measured^(T) the area^(U) on all four sides. It had a wall around it,^(V) five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide,^(W) to separate the holy from the common.^(X)