Bible Glide

Ezekiel 46 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

Ezekiel 46 continues the temple vision with clear instructions for worship, offerings, and priestly care. It sets the prince's role alongside the people's worship and explains how holy food is handled within the temple courts. The chapter highlights ordered access, regular devotion, and justice in property.

What happens in Ezekiel 46?

The chapter begins with worship at the east gate on Sabbath and New Moon days, when the gate opens and the prince brings offerings while the people bow before the LORD. It then outlines offerings for festivals, freewill gifts, and the daily morning burnt offering. The prince is also warned not to seize land from the people, but to provide for his sons from his own inheritance. The final section describes special rooms and courts where priests boil, bake, and prepare sacrifices so that holy food is kept within the proper area.

This chapter belongs to Ezekiel's vision of a restored temple and ordered worship. After the earlier measurements, regulations, and promises of land, the vision now turns to how leaders, priests, and the people are to approach God. It gives practical details that support the holiness and fairness of the restored community.

  • Ordered worshipThe chapter sets times, places, and actions for Sabbath, feast, and daily offerings.
  • Priestly holinessSacrificial food is prepared in designated spaces so what is holy is handled properly.
  • Just leadershipThe prince must honor worship and protect the people's inheritance instead of taking it.
  • What do the Sabbath and New Moon instructions teach about regular worship in this chapter?
  • How does the prince's role in worship combine leadership with humility?
  • Why does the chapter place so much emphasis on where sacrifices are prepared and eaten?

Read the full text of Ezekiel 46 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Ezekiel 46

The Prince’s Offerings

1“This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘The gate of the inner court that faces east must be kept shut during the six days of work, but on the Sabbath day and on the day of the New Moon it shall be opened.2The prince is to enter from the outside through the portico of the gateway and stand by the gatepost, while the priests sacrifice his burnt offerings and peace offerings. He is to bow in worship at the threshold of the gate and then depart, but the gate must not be shut until evening.3On the Sabbaths and New Moons the people of the land are also to bow in worship before the LORD at the entrance to that gateway.4The burnt offering that the prince presents to the LORD on the Sabbath day shall be six unblemished male lambs and an unblemished ram.5The grain offering with the ram shall be one ephah, and the grain offering with the lambs shall be as much as he is able, along with a hin of oil per ephah.6On the day of the New Moon he shall offer a young, unblemished bull, six lambs, and a ram without blemish.7He is to provide a grain offering of an ephah with the bull, an ephah with the ram, and as much as he is able with the lambs, along with a hin of oil per ephah.8When the prince enters, he shall go in through the portico of the gateway, and he shall go out the same way.

9When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, whoever enters by the north gate to worship must go out by the south gate, and whoever enters by the south gate must go out by the north gate. No one is to return through the gate by which he entered, but each must go out by the opposite gate.10When the people enter, the prince shall go in with them, and when they leave, he shall leave.

11At the festivals and appointed feasts, the grain offering shall be an ephah with a bull, an ephah with a ram, and as much as one is able to give with the lambs, along with a hin of oil per ephah.12When the prince makes a freewill offering to the LORD, whether a burnt offering or a peace offering, the gate facing east must be opened for him. He is to offer his burnt offering or peace offering just as he does on the Sabbath day. Then he shall go out, and the gate must be closed after he goes out.

13And you shall provide an unblemished year-old lamb as a daily burnt offering to the LORD; you are to offer it every morning.14You are also to provide with it every morning a grain offering of a sixth of an ephah with a third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour—a grain offering to the LORD. This is a permanent statute.15Thus they shall provide the lamb, the grain offering, and the oil every morning as a regular burnt offering.’

16This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘If the prince gives a gift to any of his sons as an inheritance, it will belong to his descendants. It will become their property by inheritance.17But if he gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it will belong to that servant until the year of freedom; then it will revert to the prince. His inheritance belongs only to his sons; it shall be theirs.18The prince must not take any of the inheritance of the people by evicting them from their property. He is to provide an inheritance for his sons from his own property, so that none of My people will be displaced from his property.’”

The Courts for Boiling and Baking

19Then the man brought me through the entrance at the side of the gate into the holy chambers facing north, which belonged to the priests, and he showed me a place there at the far western end20and said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them into the outer court and transmit holiness to the people.”

21Then he brought me into the outer court and led me around to its four corners, and I saw a separate court in each of its corners.22In the four corners of the outer court there were enclosed courts, each forty cubits long and thirty cubits wide. Each of the four corner areas had the same dimensions.23Around the inside of each of the four courts was a row of masonry with ovens built at the base of the walls on all sides.24And he said to me, “These are the kitchens where those who minister at the temple will cook the sacrifices offered by the people.”

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