Exodus

30 “And you shall make an altar for incense-burning: you shall make it of acacia wood, 2 eighteen inches long and eighteen wide—it is to be square—and three feet high, its horns in one piece with it, 3 and gild it with pure gold, its top and its walls all round and its horns, and make a gold molding around it, 4 and make two gold rings for it under its molding on its two sides, make them both sides of it, and let them be eyes for poles to carry it with; 5 and make the poles of acacia wood and gild them. 6 And put it before the veil that goes over the ark of the Lessons, before the mercy-seat over the Lessons, where I meet you. 7 And Aaron shall burn aromatic incense on it morning by morning, burning it when he trims the lamps, 8 and when Aaron sets up the lamps in the evening hours he shall burn it, as a regular incense before Jehovah generation after generation. 9 You shall not offer alien incense on it, nor burnt-offering nor grain-offering, nor pour a libation on it. 10 And Aaron shall purge its horns once a year; with part of the blood of the annual sin-offering of purgation it shall be purged generation after generation; it shall be holiest of the holy to Jehovah.”

11 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying 12 “When you take the census of the sons of Israel by their muster, they shall each give Jehovah composition-money for his life when they are mustered, and there shall not be any calamity among them at mustering them. 13 This they shall give, everyone that passes the muster, half a shekel of the sacred standard, twenty gerahs to a shekel: half a shekel as contribution to Jehovah. 14 Everyone that passes the muster, from twenty years old up, shall give Jehovah’s contribution: 15 the rich man shall not increase nor the poor man decrease the half-shekel, giving Jehovah’s contribution to compound for your lives. 16 And you shall take the money for the compounding from the sons of Israel and apply it to the service of the Tent of Meeting, and the sons of Israel shall have it as a memorial before Jehovah to compound for your lives.”

17 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying 18 “And you shall make a bronze laver, with its pedestal bronze, for washing, and put it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in; 19 and Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and feet out of it. 20 When they go into the Tent of Meeting they shall wash in water, so as not to die; or when they approach the altar to officiate in burning a fire-offering to Jehovah, 21 they shall wash their hands and feet so as not to die. It shall be a perpetual usage for him and his descendants generation after generation.”

22 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying 23 “And do you take first-class spices, free-flowing opobalsam two hundred ounces and spice-cinnamon half of it, one hundred, and spice-flag one hundred, 24* and cassia two hundred, by the sacred standard, and olive oil five quarts, 25 and make them into a sacred anointing-oil, a perfume scented by the perfumer’s art; it shall be a sacred anointing-oil. 26 And you shall anoint with it the Tent of Meeting, and the Ark of the Lessons, 27 and the table and all its vessels, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, 28 and the altar of burnt-offering and all its vessels, and the laver and its pedestal, 29* and consecrate them; and they shall be holiest of the holy, everything that touches them shall become sacred. 30 And Aaron and his sons you shall anoint, and consecrate them to be priests to me. 31* And to the sons of Israel you shall speak, saying ‘You shall have this as a sacred anointing-oil generation after generation: 32* it shall never be poured on a human body, and you shall never make the like with the same proportions: it is sacred, you shall hold it sacred. 33 Anybody who compounds the like or who puts any of it on an alien object shall be cut off from his kinsfolk.”

34* And Jehovah said to Moses “Take aromatics, myrrh and onycha and aromatic galbanum and pure frankincense; part for part it shall be; 35 and make it into a perfume-incense, a work of the perfumer’s art, salted, pure, a sacred thing, 36 and powder it fine, and put some of it before the Lessons in the Tent of Meeting where I meet you; you shall hold it holiest of the holy. 37* And in the proportions of the incense you make you shall never make any for yourselves; you shall hold it sacred to Jehovah. 38 Anybody who makes the like to smell it shall be cut off from his kinsfolk.”