So if you remember, even when offering your gift at the altar, that your brother has any grievance against you,

leave your gift at the very altar and go away; first be reconciled to your brother, then come back and offer your gift.

You say again, 'Swear by the altar, and it means nothing; but swear by the gift upon it, and the oath is binding.'

You are blind! for which is the greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

He who swears by the altar swears by it and by all that lies on it;

it is that on you may fall the punishment for all the just blood shed on earth from the blood of Abel the just down to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

from the blood of Abel down to the blood of Zechariah who was slain between the altar and the House of God ??yes, I tell you, it will all be charged upon this generation.

Why, as I passed along and scanned your objects of worship, I actually came upon an altar with the inscription TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well, I proclaim to you what you worship in your ignorance.

Do you not know that as men who perform temple-rites get their food from the temple, and as attendants at the altar get their share of the sacrifices,

Look at the rites of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

He who is thus described belongs to another tribe, no member of which ever devoted himself to the altar;

containing the golden altar of incense, and also the ark of the covenant covered all over with gold, which held the golden pot of manna, the rod of Aaron that once blossomed, and the tablets of the covenant;

Our altar is one of which the worshippers have no right to eat.

When our father Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar, was he not justified by what he did?

And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain for adhering to God's word and to the testimony which they bore;

And another angel went and stood at the altar with a golden censer; he was given abundant incense, to be laid with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar in front of the throne;

And the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and poured it on the earth; then followed peals of thunder, loud blasts, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Then the sixth angel blew; and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,

And I was given a reed like a rod, and told, "Rise up and measure the temple of God and the altar, numbering the worshippers;

and another angel came from the altar ??he who has power over fire ??and called loudly to the one who had the sharp sickle, "Thrust your sharp sickle in, cull the clusters from the Vine of earth, for its grapes are fully ripe."

And I heard the altar cry, "Even so, Lord God almighty: true and just are thy sentences of doom."