1. In the second year after the Israelites’ departure from the land of Egypt, on the first day of the second month, the Lord said to Moses at the tent of meeting in the wilderness of Sinai:
2. Take a census of the whole community of the Israelites, by clans and ancestral houses, registering by name each male individually.
3. You and Aaron shall enroll in companies all the men in Israel of twenty years or more who are fit for military service.