Exodus 30

1Make an altar for burning incense. Make it of acacia wood.

2It is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high, with its horns of one piece with it.

3Overlay it with pure gold—its top, its sides all around, and its horns—and make a gold molding around it.

4Make two gold rings for it below its molding, on its two sides—make them on opposite sides—to hold the poles used to carry it.

5Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.

6Place the altar in front of the curtain that is by the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.

7Aaron is to burn fragrant incense on it every morning. He is to burn it when he tends the lamps.

8When Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he is to burn it again, a regular incense offering before Yahweh throughout your generations.

9Do not offer any unauthorized incense on it, or any burnt offering or grain offering, and do not pour out a drink offering on it.

10Once a year Aaron is to make atonement on its horns. Once a year, with the blood of the sin offering of atonement, he is to make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to Yahweh.”

11Yahweh said to Moses,

12“When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each man must pay Yahweh a ransom for his life when they are counted, so that no plague will strike them when you count them.

13Everyone who crosses over to those already counted is to give this: half a shekel, by the sanctuary shekel (a shekel is twenty gerahs). This half shekel is an offering to Yahweh.

14Everyone who crosses over to those counted, from twenty years old and up, is to give Yahweh’s offering.

15The rich are not to give more and the poor are not to give less than half a shekel when you give Yahweh’s offering to make atonement for your lives.

16Take the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before Yahweh, making atonement for your lives.”

17Yahweh said to Moses,

18“Make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. Place it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it.

19Aaron and his sons are to wash their hands and their feet with water from it.

20Whenever they go into the tent of meeting, they are to wash with water so that they will not die. So also when they approach the altar to minister by burning an offering by fire to Yahweh,

21they are to wash their hands and their feet so that they will not die. This is to be a permanent statute for them, for Aaron and his descendants throughout their generations.”

22Yahweh said to Moses,

23“Take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much fragrant cinnamon, that is, 250 shekels, and 250 shekels of fragrant cane,

24and five hundred shekels of cassia, all by the sanctuary shekel, along with a hin of olive oil.

25Make these into a holy anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be a holy anointing oil.

26Use it to anoint the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony,

27the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, the altar of incense,

28the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand.

29Consecrate them, and they will be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy.

30Anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them to serve me as priests.

31Tell the Israelites, ‘This is to be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations.

32It must not be poured on anyone’s body, and do not make anything like it with the same formula. It is holy, and you must treat it as holy.

33Whoever blends anything like it, or puts any of it on an unauthorized person, is to be cut off from his people.’”

34Yahweh said to Moses, “Take fragrant spices—stacte, onycha, and galbanum—fragrant spices together with pure frankincense, all in equal amounts.

35Make them into incense, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.

36Grind some of it into fine powder and put some of it in front of the testimony in the tent of meeting, where I will meet with you. It is to be most holy to you.

37As for the incense you make, do not make any for yourselves with the same formula. It is to be holy to you, set apart for Yahweh.

38Whoever makes anything like it to enjoy its fragrance is to be cut off from his people.”