1-2. Twenty-five years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, and fourteen years after the Babylonians had captured Jerusalem, the Lord's power took control of me on the tenth day of the first month. The Lord showed me some visions in which I was carried to the top of a high mountain in Jerusalem. I looked to the south and saw what looked like a city full of buildings.
3. In my vision the Lord took me closer, and I saw a man who was sparkling like polished bronze. He was standing near one of the gates and was holding a tape measure in one hand and a measuring stick in the other.
4. The man said, “Ezekiel, son of man, pay close attention to everything I'm going to show you—that's why you've been brought here. Listen carefully, because you must tell the people of Israel what you see.”
5. The first thing I saw was an outer wall that completely surrounded the temple area. The man took his measuring stick, which was three metres long, and measured the wall; it was three metres high and three metres thick.
10. The three guardrooms on each side of the passageway were the same size, and the walls that separated them were the same thickness.
11. Next, the man measured the width of the passageway, and it was six and a half metres, but the two doors of the gate were only five metres wide.
12. In front of the guardrooms, which were three metres square, was a railing about fifty centimetres high and fifty centimetres thick.
13. The man measured the distance from the back wall of one of these rooms to the same spot in the room directly across the passageway, and it was twelve and a half metres.
14. He measured the entrance room at the far end of the passageway, and it was ten metres wide.
15. Finally, he measured the total length of the passageway, from the outer wall to the entrance room, and it was twenty-five metres.
16. The three walls in the guardrooms had small windows in them, just like the ones in the entrance room. The walls along the passageway were decorated with carvings of palm trees.