1. It was the tenth day of the new year, which was the 25th year after we had been taken into exile and the fourteenth year after Jerusalem was captured. On that day I felt the powerful presence of the Lord, and he carried me away.
2. In a vision God took me to the land of Israel and put me on a high mountain. I saw in front of me a group of buildings that looked like a city.
3. He took me closer, and I saw a man who shone like bronze. He was holding a linen tape measure and a measuring rod and was standing by a gateway.
4. He said to me, “Watch, mortal man. Listen carefully and pay close attention to everything I show you, because this is why you were brought here. You are to tell the people of Israel everything you see.”
5. What I saw was the Temple, and there was a wall round it. The man took his measuring rod, which was three metres long, and measured the wall. It was three metres high and three metres thick.
6. Then he went to the gateway that faced east. He went up the steps, and at the top he measured the entrance; it was three metres deep.
7. Beyond it there was a passage, which had three guardrooms on each side. Each of the rooms was square, three metres on each side, and the walls between them were 2.5 metres thick. Beyond the guardrooms there was a passage three metres long that led to an entrance room which faced the Temple.
8-9. He measured this room, and found it was four metres deep. It formed that end of the gateway which was nearest the Temple, and at its far end the walls were one metre thick.
10. (These guardrooms on each side of the passage were all the same size, and the walls between them were all of the same thickness.)
11. Next, the man measured the width of the passage in the gateway. It was 6.5 metres altogether, and the space between the open gates was five metres.
12. In front of each of the guardrooms there was a low wall fifty centimetres high and fifty centimetres thick. (The rooms were three metres square.)
13. Then he measured the distance from the back wall of one room to the back wall of the room across the passage from it, and it was 12.5 metres.
14. The room at the far end led out to a courtyard. He measured that room and found it was ten metres wide.