I pray with all my heart; answer me, Lord! I will obey your decrees. I cry out to you; rescue me, that I may obey your laws. I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night, thinking about your promise. In your faithful love, O Lord, hear my cry; let me be revived by following your regulations. Lawless people are coming to attack me; they live far from your instructions. But you are near, O Lord, and all your commands are true. I have known from my earliest days that your laws will last forever.
After that, the man brought me into the sanctuary of the Temple. He measured the walls on either side of its doorway, and they were 10 1⁄2 feet thick. The doorway was 17 1⁄2 feet wide, and the walls on each side of it were 8 3⁄4 feet long. The sanctuary itself was 70 feet long and 35 feet wide.
Then he went beyond the sanctuary into the inner room. He measured the walls on either side of its entrance, and they were 3 1⁄2 feet thick. The entrance was 10 1⁄2 feet wide, and the walls on each side of the entrance were 12 1⁄4 feet long. The inner room of the sanctuary was 35 feet long and 35 feet wide. "This," he told me, "is the Most Holy Place."
Then he measured the wall of the Temple, and it was 10 1⁄2 feet thick. There was a row of rooms along the outside wall; each room was 7 feet wide. These side rooms were built in three levels, one above the other, with thirty rooms on each level. The supports for these side rooms rested on exterior ledges on the Temple wall; they did not extend into the wall. Each level was wider than the one below it, corresponding to the narrowing of the Temple wall as it rose higher. A stairway led up from the bottom level through the middle level to the top level.
I saw that the Temple was built on a terrace, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. This terrace was 10 1⁄2 feet high. The outer wall of the Temple's side rooms was 8 3⁄4 feet thick. This left an open area between these side rooms and the row of rooms along the outer wall of the inner courtyard. This open area was 35 feet wide, and it went all the way around the Temple. Two doors opened from the side rooms into the terrace yard, which was 8 3⁄4 feet wide. One door faced north and the other south.
A large building stood on the west, facing the Temple courtyard. It was 122 1⁄2 feet wide and 157 1⁄2 feet long, and its walls were 8 3⁄4 feet thick. Then the man measured the Temple, and it was 175 feet long. The courtyard around the building, including its walls, was an additional 175 feet in length. The inner courtyard to the east of the Temple was also 175 feet wide. The building to the west, including its two walls, was also 175 feet wide.
The sanctuary, the inner room, and the entry room of the Temple were all paneled with wood, as were the frames of the recessed windows. The inner walls of the Temple were paneled with wood above and below the windows. The space above the door leading into the inner room, and its walls inside and out, were also paneled. All the walls were decorated with carvings of cherubim, each with two faces, and there was a carving of a palm tree between each of the cherubim. One face - that of a man - looked toward the palm tree on one side. The other face - that of a young lion - looked toward the palm tree on the other side. The figures were carved all along the inside of the Temple, from the floor to the top of the walls, including the outer wall of the sanctuary.
There were square columns at the entrance to the sanctuary, and the ones at the entrance of the Most Holy Place were similar. There was an altar made of wood, 5 1⁄4 feet high and 3 1⁄2 feet across. Its corners, base, and sides were all made of wood. "This," the man told me, "is the table that stands in the Lord's presence."
Both the sanctuary and the Most Holy Place had double doorways, each with two swinging doors. The doors leading into the sanctuary were decorated with carved cherubim and palm trees, just as on the walls. And there was a wooden roof at the front of the entry room to the Temple. On both sides of the entry room were recessed windows decorated with carved palm trees. The side rooms along the outside wall also had roofs.
Then the man led me out of the Temple courtyard by way of the north gateway. We entered the outer courtyard and came to a group of rooms against the north wall of the inner courtyard. This structure, whose entrance opened toward the north, was 175 feet long and 87 1⁄2 feet wide. One block of rooms overlooked the 35-foot width of the inner courtyard. Another block of rooms looked out onto the pavement of the outer courtyard. The two blocks were built three levels high and stood across from each other. Between the two blocks of rooms ran a walkway 17 1⁄2 feet wide. It extended the entire 175 feet of the complex, and all the doors faced north. Each of the two upper levels of rooms was narrower than the one beneath it because the upper levels had to allow space for walkways in front of them. Since there were three levels and they did not have supporting columns as in the courtyards, each of the upper levels was set back from the level beneath it. There was an outer wall that separated the rooms from the outer courtyard; it was 87 1⁄2 feet long. This wall added length to the outer block of rooms, which extended for only 87 1⁄2 feet, while the inner block - the rooms toward the Temple - extended for 175 feet. There was an eastern entrance from the outer courtyard to these rooms.
But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings.
These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God's curse. They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.
These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb: "A dog returns to its vomit." And another says, "A washed pig returns to the mud."