If therefore when you are offering your gift upon the altar, you remember that your brother has a grievance against you,

leave your gift there before the altar, and go and make friends with your brother first, and then return and proceed to offer your gift.

And you say, "'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the offering lying on it is bound by the oath.'

"You are blind! Why, which is greater? --the offering, or the altar which makes the offering holy?

He who swears by the altar swears both by it and by everything on it;

that all the innocent blood shed upon earth may come on you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah whom you murdered between the Sanctuary and the altar.

Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense;

Yes, I tell you that, from the blood of Abel down to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the House, it shall all be required from the present generation.

For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I found also an altar bearing the inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' "The Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing Him, revere, Him I now proclaim to you.

Do you not know that those who perform the sacred rites have their food from the sacred place, and that those who serve at the altar all alike share with the altar?

Look at the Israelites--the nation and their ritual. Are not those who eat the sacrifices joint-partakers in the altar?

He, however, to whom that prophecy refers is associated with a different tribe, not one member of which has anything to do with the altar.

We Christians have an altar from which the ministers of the Jewish Tent have no right to eat.

Through Him, then, let us continually lay on the altar a sacrifice of praise to God, namely, the utterance of lips that give thanks to His Name.

Was it, or was it not, because of his actions that he was declared to be righteous as the result of his having offered up his son Isaac upon the altar?

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw at the foot of the altar the souls of those whose lives had been sacrificed because of the word of God and of the testimony which they had given.

And another angel came and stood close to the altar, carrying a censer of gold; and abundance of incense was given to him that he might place it with the prayers of all God's people upon the golden altar which was in front of the throne.

So the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and flung it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder, and voices, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

The sixth angel blew his trumpet; and I heard a single voice speaking from among the horns of the golden incense altar which is in the presence of God.

Then a reed was given me to serve as a measuring rod; and a voice said, "Rise, and measure God's sanctuary--and the altar--and count the worshipers who are in it.

And another angel came out from the altar--he who had power over fire--and he spoke in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Use your sharp sickle, and gather the bunches from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are now quite ripe."

And I heard a voice from the altar say, "Even so, O Lord God, the Ruler of all, true and righteous are Thy judgments."