A — The Rules

Part 22

colonnade and they shall be most holy for ever and ever. You shall make a place west of the Temple, a colonnade of pillars standing around for the sin-offerings and the guilt-offerings, divided from one another, the sin-offerings of the priests, the he-goats, and the sin-offerings of the people and their guilt-offerings. None of these shall be mingled one with another, for their places shall be divided from one another in order that the priests may not err concerning all the sin- offerings of the people, and all the rams of the guilt-offerings, incurring the sin of guilt. The birds for the altar: he shall prepare turtledoves XXXVI.. from the corner of.. to the corner of the gate, one hundred and twenty cubits. The gate forty cubits wide. Each side shall be according to this measurement. The width of its wall shall be seven cubits, and its height forty-five cubits to the rafters of its roof. The width of its chambers twenty-six cubits from corner to corner. The gates of entrance and exit: the gate shall be fourteen cubits wide and twenty-eight cubits high from the threshold to the lintel. The height of the rafters above the lintel shall be fourteen cubits. roofed with a panelling of cedar wood overlaid with pure gold. Its doors shall be overlaid with fine gold. From the corner of the gate to the second angle of the courtyard, one hundred and twenty cubits. Thus shall be the measurement of all these gates of the inner courtyard. The gates shall lead inside into the courtyard. XXXVII You shall make inside the courtyard seats for the priests, and tables in front of the seats, in the inner colonnade by the outer wall of the courtyard, places made for the priests and their sacrifices, for the firstfruits and the tithes, for their peace-offering sacrifices which they shall sacrifice. The sacrifices of the peace-offerings of the children of Israel shall not be mingled with the sacrifices of the priests. In the four corners of the courtyard you shall make for them a place for cooking-stoves where they shall seethe their sacrifices and sin- offerings. XXXVIII.. There they shall eat.. the bird, the turtle-dove and the young pigeons.. You shall make a second courtyard around the inner courtyard, one hundred cubits wide, and four hundred and eighty cubits long on

the east side, and thus shall be the width and length of all its sides: to the south, to the west and to the north. Its wall shall be four cubits wide and twenty-eight cubits high. Chambers shall be made in the wall outside and between each chamber there shall be three-and-a-half cubits XXXIX.. that all the congregation of the children of Israel may bow down before me.. No woman shall come there, nor a child until the day that he has fulfilled the rule.. and has paid for himself a ransom to YHWH, half a shekel, an eternal rule, a memorial wherever they dwell. The shekel twenty gerahs. When they shall collect from him the half-shekel.. to me. Afterwards they shall enter from the age of twenty.. The names of the gates of this courtyard shall be according to the names of the children of Israel: Simeon, Levi and Judah in the east; Reuben, Joseph and Benjamin in the south; Issachar, Zebulun and Gad in the west; Dan, Naphtali and Asher in the north. Between each gate the measurement: from the north-eastern corner to the gate of Simeon, ninety- nine cubits, and the gate twenty-eight cubits. From this gate of Simeon to the gate of Levi, ninety-nine cubits, and the gate, twenty-eight cubits. From the gate of Levi to the gate of Judah XL.. You shall make a third courtyard.. to their daughters and to the strangers who were born.. wide around the middle courtyard.. in length about one thousand six hundred cubits from one corner to the next. Each side shall be according to this measurement: on the east, the south, the west and the north. The wall shall be seven cubits wide and forty-nine cubits high. Chambers shall be made between its gates along the foundation as far up as its 'crowns'. There shall be three gates in the east, three in the south, three in the west and three in the north. The gates shall be fifty cubits wide and their height seventy cubits. Between one gate and another there shall be three hundred and sixty cubits. From the corner to the gate of Simeon, three hundred and sixty cubits. From the gate of Simeon to the gate of Levi, likewise. From the gate of Levi to the gate of Judah, likewise three hundred and sixty. XLI.. From the gate of Issachar to the gate of Zebulun, three hundred and sixty cubits. From the gate of Zebulun to the gate of Gad, three hundred and sixty cubits. From the gate of Gad to the northern corner, three hundred and sixty cubits. From this corner

to the gate of Dan: three hundred and sixty cubits. Thus from the gate of Dan to the gate of Naphtali, three hundred and sixty cubits. From the gate of Naphtali to the gate of Asher, three hundred and sixty cubits. From the gate of Asher to the eastern corner, three hundred and sixty cubits. The gates shall jut outwards from the wall of the courtyard seven cubits, and extend inwards from the wall to the courtyard thirty-six cubits. The entrance of the gate shall be fourteen cubits wide and twenty-eight cubits high up to the lintel. The rafters at the doorways shall be of cedar wood and overlaid with gold. The doors shall be overlaid with pure gold. Between each gate inwards you shall make storehouses, XLII rooms and colonnades. The room shall be ten cubits wide, twenty cubits long, and fourteen cubits high.. with cedar wood. The wall shall be two cubits wide. On the outside there shall be storehouses. The storehouse shall be ten cubits wide and twenty cubits long. The wall shall be two cubits wide and fourteen cubits high up to the lintel. Its entrance shall be three cubits wide. You shall make in this way all the storehouses and the corresponding rooms. The colonnade.. shall be ten cubits wide. Between each gate you shall make eighteen storehouses and the corresponding eighteen rooms.. You shall make a staircase next to the walls of the gates towards the colonnade. Winding stairs shall go up to the second and third colonnades and to the roof. You shall build storehouses and corresponding rooms and colonnades as on the ground floor. The second and the third shall follow the measurement of the lower one. On the roof of the third you shall make pillars roofed with rafters from one pillar to the next a place for tabernacles. The shall be eight cubits high and the tabernacles shall be made on their each year at the feast of the Tabernacles for the elders of the congregation, for the princes, the heads of the fathers' houses of the children of Israel, the captains of the thousands, the captains of the hundreds, who will ascend and dwell there until the sacrificing of the holocaust on the festival which is the feast of the Tabernacles, each year. Between each gate there shall be XLIII.. on the days of the firstfruits of the corn, of the wine and the oil, and at the festival of the offering of wood. On these days shall be eaten. They

shall not put aside anything from it from one year to another. For they shall eat it in this manner. From the feast of the Firstfruits of the corn of wheat they shall eat the corn until the next year, until the feast of the Firstfruits, and the wine from the day of the festival of Wine until the next year, until the day of the festival of the Wine, and the oil from its festival, until the next year, until the festival, the day of offering the new oil on the altar. Whatever is left their festivals shall be sanctified by being burnt with fire. It shall no longer be eaten for it is holy. Those who live within a distance of three days' walk from the sanctuary shall bring whatever they can bring. If they cannot carry it, they shall sell it for money and buy with it corn, wine, oil, cattle and sheep, and shall eat them on the days of the festivals. On working days they shall not eat from this in their weariness for it is holy. On the holy days it shall be eaten, but it shall not be eaten on working days. XLIV.. You shall allot the rooms and the corresponding chambers. From the gate of Simeon to the gate of Judah shall be for the priests.. All that is to the right and to the left of the gate of Levi, you shall allot to Aaron, your brother, one hundred and eight rooms and corresponding chambers and two tabernacles which are on the roof. to the sons of Judah from the gate of Judah to the corner: fifty-four rooms and corresponding chambers and the tabernacle that is over them. to the sons of Simeon from the gate of Simeon to the second corner: their rooms, the corresponding chambers and tabernacles. to the sons of Reuben from the corner which is beside the sons of Judah to the gate of Reuben: fifty-two rooms and the corresponding chambers and tabernacles. from the gate of Reuben to the gate of Joseph to the sons of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh. from the gate of Joseph to the gate of Benjamin to the sons of Kohath from the Levites. from the gate of Benjamin to the western corner to the sons of Benjamin. from this corner to the gate of Issachar to the sons of Issachar. from the gate XLV.. the second priestly course shall enter on the left.. and the first shall leave on the right. They shall not

mingle with one another nor their vessels. Each priestly course shall come to its place and they shall stay there. One shall arrive and the other leave on the eighth day. They shall clean the rooms, one after the other, when the first leaves. There shall be no mingling there. No man who has had a nocturnal emission shall enter the sanctuary at all until three days have elapsed. He shall wash his garments and bathe on the first day and on the third day he shall wash his garments and bathe, and after sunset he shall enter the sanctuary. They shall not enter my sanctuary in their impure uncleanness and render it unclean. No man who has had sexual intercourse with his wife shall enter anywhere into the city of the sanctuary where I cause my name to abide, for three days. No blind man shall enter it in all his days and shall not profane the city where I abide, for I, YHWH, abide amongst the children of Israel for ever and ever. Whoever is to purify himself of his flux shall count seven days for his purification. He shall wash his garments on the seventh day and bathe his whole body in running water. Afterwards he shall enter the city of the sanctuary. No one unclean through contact with a corpse shall enter there until he has purified himself. No leper nor any man smitten shall enter there until he has purified himself and has offered.. XLVI.. No unclean bird shall fly over my sanctuary.. the roofs of the gates.. the outer courtyard.. be in my sanctuary for ever and ever all the time that I abide among them. You shall make a terrace round about, outside the outer courtyard, fourteen cubits wide like the entrances of all the gates. You shall make twelve steps to it by which the children of Israel shall ascend there to enter my sanctuary. You shall make a one-hundred-cubits-wide ditch around the sanctuary which shall divide the holy sanctuary from the city so that no one can rush into my sanctuary and defile it. They shall sanctify my sanctuary and hold it in awe because I abide among them. You shall make for them latrines outside the city where they shall go out, north-west of the city. These shall be roofed houses with holes in them into which the filth shall go down. It shall be far enough not to be visible from the city, three thousand cubits.

You shall make three areas to the east of the city, divided from one another, where the lepers, those suffering from a flux and men who have had a emission XLVII.. Their cities shall be pure.. for ever. The city which I will sanctify, causing my name and my sanctuary to abide in it, shall be holy and pure of all impurity with which they can become impure. Whatever is in it shall be pure. Whatever enters it shall be pure: wine, oil, all food and all moistened shall be clean. No skin of clean animals slaughtered in their cities shall be brought there. But in their cities they may use them for any work they need. But they shall not bring them to the city of my sanctuary, for the purity of the skin corresponds to that of the flesh. You shall not profane the city where I cause my name and my sanctuary to abide. For it is in the skins slaughtered in the sanctuary that they shall bring their wine and oil and all their food to the city of my sanctuary. They shall not pollute my sanctuary with the skins of animals slaughtered in their country which are tainted. You cannot render any city among your cities as pure as my city, for the purity of the skin of the animal corresponds to the purity of its flesh. If you slaughter it in my sanctuary, it shall be pure for my sanctuary, but if you slaughter it in your cities, it shall be pure for your cities. Whatever is pure for the sanctuary, shall be brought in skins for the sanctuary, and you shall not profane my sanctuary and my city where I abide with tainted skins. XLVIII.. the cormorant, the stork, every kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.. You may eat the following flying insects: every kind of great locust, every kind of long-headed locust, every kind of green locust, and every kind of desert locust. These are among the flying insects which you may eat: those which walk on four legs and have legs jointed above their feet to leap with them on the ground and wings to fly with. You shall not eat the carcass of any bird or beast but may sell it to a foreigner. You shall not eat any abominable thing, for you are a holy people to YHWH, your God. You are the sons of YHWH, your God. You shall not gash yourselves or shave your forelocks in mourning for the dead, nor shall you tattoo