This is the Lord’s gate – the godly enter through it.

She makes for herself coverlets; ¹  her clothing is fine linen and purple. ² 

I will bring them to my holy mountain; I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. ¹  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.” ² 

“‘But just look at you! ¹  You are putting your confidence in a false belief ²  that will not deliver you. ³ 

Then I said, ¹  “Lord, from the very beginning you have been seated on your glorious throne on high. You are the place where we can find refuge.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord’s temple (including the two pillars, the large bronze basin called “The Sea,” the twelve bronze bulls under “The Sea,” and the movable stands ¹ ) was too heavy to be weighed.

When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate ¹  it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You ²  have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

“Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ¹  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

Now ¹  the whole crowd ²  of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. ³ 

King Jehoash of Judah collected all the sacred items that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had consecrated, as well as his own sacred items and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He sent it all ¹  to King Hazael of Syria, who then withdrew ²  from Jerusalem.

King Ahaz took off the frames of the movable stands, and removed the basins from them. He took “The Sea” ¹  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ²  and put it on the pavement.

He will build a temple to honor me; ¹  he will become my son, and I will become his father. I will grant to his dynasty permanent rule over Israel.’ ² 

He said to me, ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my temple and my courts, for I have chosen him to become my son and I will become his father.

Likewise one of the second cherub’s wings was seven and one-half feet long and touched the other wall of the temple; its other wing was also seven and one-half feet long and touched one of the first cherub’s wings. ¹ 

The Lord God of their ancestors ¹  continually warned them through his messengers, ²  for he felt compassion for his people and his dwelling place.

Certainly ¹  spending just one day in your temple courts is better than spending a thousand elsewhere. ²  I would rather stand at the entrance ³  to the temple of my God than live ⁴  in the tents of the wicked.

I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument ¹  that will be better than sons and daughters. I will set up a permanent monument ²  for them that will remain.

But those who harvest the grain ¹  will eat it, and will praise the Lord. Those who pick the grapes will drink the wine ²  in the courts of my holy sanctuary.”

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ²