1. “You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood.
2. Its length shall be a cubit, and its width a cubit. It shall be square, and its height shall be two cubits. Its horns shall be of one piece with it.
3. You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides around it, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding around it.
4. You shall make two golden rings for it under its molding; on its two ribs, on its two sides you shall make them; and they shall be for places for poles with which to bear it.
5. You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.
6. You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the covenant, before the mercy seat that is over the covenant, where I will meet with you.
7. Aaron shall burn incense of sweet spices on it every morning. When he tends the lamps, he shall burn it.
8. When Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.
9. You shall offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering; and you shall pour no drink offering on it.
10. Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once in the year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.”
11. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
12. “When you take a census of the children of Israel, according to those who are counted among them, then each man shall give a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when you count them; that there be no plague among them when you count them.
13. They shall give this, everyone who passes over to those who are counted, half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel for an offering to the Lord.
14. Everyone who passes over to those who are counted, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering to the Lord.