מִזְבֵּחַ

Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, in whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she places her young near Your altars, O LORD of Hosts, my King and my God.

The LORD is God; He has made His light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

They will not look to the altars they have fashioned with their hands or to the Asherahs and incense altars they have made with their fingers.

In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the center of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD near her border.

Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for, and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth will serve you and go up on My altar with acceptance; I will adorn My glorious house.

Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.

Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.

The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.

Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain before your idols.

I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.

Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

“Son of man,” He said to me, “now lift up your eyes to the north.” So I lifted up my eyes to the north, and in the entrance north of the Altar Gate I saw this idol of jealousy.

So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with a weapon of slaughter in his hand. With them was another man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. And they came in and stood beside the bronze altar.

…and the chamber that faces north is for the priests who keep charge of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, the only Levites who may approach the LORD to minister before Him.”

Next he measured the court. It was square, a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits wide. And the altar was in front of the temple.

There was an altar of wood three cubits high and two cubits square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. And the man told me, “This is the table that is before the LORD.”

These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits (a cubit and a handbreadth): Its gutter shall be a cubit deep and a cubit wide, with a rim of one span around its edge. And this is the height of the altar:

Then He said to me: “Son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘These are the statutes for the altar on the day it is constructed, so that burnt offerings may be sacrificed on it and blood may be splattered on it:

On the second day you are to present an unblemished male goat as a sin offering, and the altar is to be cleansed as it was with the bull.

For seven days the priests are to make atonement for the altar and cleanse it; so they shall consecrate it.

At the end of these days, from the eighth day on, the priests are to present your burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar. Then I will accept you, declares the Lord GOD.’”

And the priest is to take some of the blood from the sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gateposts of the inner court.

Then the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.

Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin, they became his altars for sinning.

Israel was a luxuriant vine, yielding fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better he made the sacred pillars.

Their hearts are devious; now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars and demolish their sacred pillars.

The high places of Aven will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

Is there iniquity in Gilead? They will surely come to nothing. Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Indeed, their altars will be heaps of stones in the furrows of the field.

Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

Let the priests who minister before the LORD weep between the portico and the altar, saying, “Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not make Your heritage a reproach, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. And in the house of their God, they drink wine obtained through fines.

On the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will visit destruction on the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off, and they will fall to the ground.

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

The LORD of Hosts will shield them. They will destroy and conquer with slingstones; they will drink and roar as with wine. And they will be filled like sprinkling bowls, drenched like the corners of the altar.

On that day, HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling bowls before the altar.

By presenting defiled food on My altar. But you ask, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By saying that the table of the LORD is contemptible.

“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar! I take no pleasure in you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.