2. with a square surface, a cubit long, a cubit wide, and two cubits high, with horns that are of one piece with it.
3. Its grate on top, its walls on all four sides, and its horns you shall plate with pure gold. Put a gold molding around it.
4. Underneath the molding you shall put gold rings, two on one side and two on the opposite side, as holders for the poles used in carrying it.
5. Make the poles, too, of acacia wood and plate them with gold.
6. This altar you are to place in front of the veil that hangs before the ark of the covenant where I will meet you.
7. On it Aaron shall burn fragrant incense. Morning after morning, when he prepares the lamps,
8. and again in the evening twilight, when he lights the lamps, he shall burn incense. Throughout your generations this shall be the regular incense offering before the Lord.
9. On this altar you shall not offer up any profane incense, or any burnt offering or grain offering; nor shall you pour out a libation upon it.
10. Once a year Aaron shall purge its horns. Throughout your generations he is to purge it once a year with the blood of the atoning purification offering. This altar is most sacred to the Lord.
11. The Lord also told Moses:
12. When you take a census of the Israelites who are to be enrolled, each one, as he is enrolled, shall give the Lord a ransom for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being enrolled.
13. This is what everyone who is enrolled must pay: a half-shekel, according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel—twenty gerahs to the shekel—a half-shekel contribution to the Lord.
14. Everyone who is enrolled, of twenty years or more, must give the contribution to the Lord.