Day 300
Today’s Reading
Ezekiel 41 & 42 and Luke 14:1-24
Ezekiel 41 & 42
Then he brought me to the nave and measured the jambs. On each side six cubits was the breadth of the jambs. And the breadth of the entrance was ten cubits, and the side walls of the entrance were five cubits on either side. And he measured the length of the nave, forty cubits, and its breadth, twenty cubits. Then he went into the inner room and measured the jambs of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the side walls on either side of the entrance, seven cubits. And he measured the length of the room, twenty cubits, and its breadth, twenty cubits, across the nave. And he said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.”
Then he measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick, and the breadth of the side chambers, four cubits, all round the temple. And the side chambers were in three storeys, one over another, thirty in each storey. There were offsets all round the wall of the temple to serve as supports for the side chambers, so that they should not be supported by the wall of the temple.And it became broader as it wound upwards to the side chambers, because the temple was enclosed upwards all round the temple. Thus the temple had a broad area upwards, and so one went up from the lowest storey to the top storey through the middle storey. I saw also that the temple had a raised platform all round; the foundations of the side chambers measured a full reed of six long cubits. The thickness of the outer wall of the side chambers was five cubits. The free space between the side chambers of the temple and the other chambers was a breadth of twenty cubits all round the temple on every side. And the doors of the side chambers opened on the free space, one door towards the north, and another door towards the south. And the breadth of the free space was five cubits all round.
The building that was facing the separate yard on the west side was seventy cubits broad, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all round, and its length ninety cubits.
Then he measured the temple, a hundred cubits long; and the yard and the building with its walls, a hundred cubits long; also the breadth of the east front of the temple and the yard, a hundred cubits.
Then he measured the length of the building facing the yard that was at the back and its galleries on either side, a hundred cubits.
The inside of the nave and the vestibules of the court, the thresholds and the narrow windows and the galleries all round the three of them, opposite the threshold, were panelled with wood all round, from the floor up to the windows (now the windows were covered), to the space above the door, even to the inner room, and on the outside. And on all the walls all round, inside and outside, was a measured pattern. It was carved of cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Every cherub had two faces: a human face towards the palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion towards the palm tree on the other side. They were carved on the whole temple all round. From the floor to above the door, cherubim and palm trees were carved; similarly the wall of the nave.
The doorposts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling an altar of wood, three cubits high, two cubits long, and two cubits broad. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.” The nave and the Holy Place had each a double door. The double doors had two leaves apiece, two swinging leaves for each door. And on the doors of the nave were carved cherubim and palm trees, such as were carved on the walls. And there was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside. And there were narrow windows and palm trees on either side, on the side walls of the vestibule, the side chambers of the temple, and the canopies.
Then he led me out into the outer court, towards the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the separate yard and opposite the building on the north. The length of the building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits. Facing the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in three storeys. And before the chambers was a passage inwards, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long, and their doors were on the north. Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers of the building. For they were in three storeys, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the courts. Thus the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones.And there was a wall outside parallel to the chambers, towards the outer court, opposite the chambers, fifty cubits long. For the chambers on the outer court were fifty cubits long, while those opposite the nave were a hundred cubits long. Below these chambers was an entrance on the east side, as one enters them from the outer court.
In the thickness of the wall of the court, on the south also, opposite the yard and opposite the building, there were chambers with a passage in front of them. They were similar to the chambers on the north, of the same length and breadth, with the same exits and arrangements and doors, as were the entrances of the chambers on the south. There was an entrance at the beginning of the passage, the passage before the corresponding wall on the east as one enters them.
Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the yard are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the Lordshall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall put the most holy offerings—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy. When the priests enter the Holy Place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They shall put on other garments before they go near to that which is for the people.”
Now when he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faced east, and measured the temple area all round.He measured the east side with the measuring reed, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all round. He measured the north side, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all round. He measured the south side, 500 cubits by the measuring reed. Then he turned to the west side and measured, 500 cubits by the measuring reed. He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall round it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common.
Luke 14:1-24
One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things.
Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person’, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please excuse me.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to examine them. Please excuse me.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
Daily Devotions - Recorded by Ross Ferguson in 2021:
Last 6 Days…
