Study Desk

I want you to know that I am not going to do this for your sake, says the Lord God . Be ashamed and embarrassed about your ways, Israel.

The empty land will be plowed so it will no longer be a ruin for everyone who passes by to see.

"This is what the Lord God says: I will let myself be asked by the people of Israel to do this for them again: I will make their people grow in number like a flock.

"Human, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and all the Israelites with him.' Then take another stick and write on it, ‘The stick of Ephraim, for Joseph and all the Israelites with him.'

say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says: I will take the stick for Joseph and the tribes of Israel with him, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and I will put it with the stick of Judah. I will make them into one stick, and they will be one in my hand.'

After a long time you will be called for service. After those years you will come into a land that has been rebuilt from war. The people in the land will have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which were empty for a long time. These people were brought out from the nations, and they will all be living in safety.

"‘This is what the Lord God says: You are the one about whom I spoke in past days. I spoke through my servants, the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for many years that I would bring you against them.

Then I will call for a war against Gog on all my mountains, says the Lord God . Everyone's sword will attack the soldier next to him.

You, all your troops, and the nations with you will fall dead on the mountains of Israel. I will let you be food for every bird that eats meat and for every wild animal.

"‘Then those who live in the cities of Israel will come out and make fires with the enemy's weapons. They will burn them, both large and small shields, bows and arrows, war clubs, and spears. They will use the weapons to burn in their fires for seven years.

"‘At that time I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, in the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Dead Sea. It will block the road for travelers. Gog and all his army will be buried there, so people will call it The Valley of Gog's Army.

"‘The people of Israel will be burying them for seven months to make the land clean again.

"Human, this is what the Lord God says: Speak to every kind of bird and wild animal: ‘Come together, come! Come together from all around to my sacrifice, a great sacrifice which I will prepare for you on the mountains of Israel. Eat flesh and drink blood!

You are to eat and drink from my sacrifice which I have prepared for you, eating fat until you are full and drinking blood until you are drunk.

He took me closer to the buildings, and I saw a man who looked as if he were made of bronze, standing in the gateway. He had a cord made of linen and a stick in his hand, both for measuring.

The rooms for the guards were ten and one-half feet long and ten and one-half feet wide. The walls that came out between the guards' rooms were about nine feet thick. The opening of the gateway next to the porch that faced the Temple was ten and one-half feet deep.

There was a room with a door that opened onto the porch of the inner north gateway. In this room the priests washed animals for the burnt offerings.

There were two tables on each side of the porch, on which animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and penalty offerings were killed.

So there were four tables inside the gateway, and four tables outside. In all there were eight tables on which the priests killed animals for sacrifices.

There were four tables made of cut stone for the burnt offering. These tables were about three feet long, three feet wide, and about two feet high. On these tables the priests put their tools which they used to kill animals for burnt offerings and the other sacrifices.