4. You shall make two golden rings under the rim of it, on the two ribs on the two opposite sides of it; and they shall be holders for the poles with which to carry it.
5. And you shall make the poles of acacia wood, overlaid with gold.
6. You shall put the altar [of incense] in front and outside of the veil that screens the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the Testimony (the Law, the tables of stone), where I will meet with you.
7. And Aaron shall burn on it incense of sweet spices; every morning when he trims and fills the lamps he shall burn it. [Ps. 141:2; Rev. 5:8; 8:3, 4.]
8. And when Aaron lights the lamps in the evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.
9. You shall offer no unholy incense on the altar nor burnt sacrifice nor cereal offering; and you shall pour no libation (drink offering) on it.
10. Aaron shall make atonement upon the horns of it once a year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year shall he make atonement upon and for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.
11. And the Lord said to Moses,
12. When you take the census of the Israelites, every man shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that no plague may fall upon them when you number them. [Rom. 8:1-4.]
13. This is what everyone shall give as he joins those already numbered: a half shekel, in terms of the sanctuary shekel, a shekel being twenty gerahs; a half shekel as an offering to the Lord.
14. Everyone from twenty years old and upward, as he joins those already numbered, shall give this offering to the Lord. [Matt. 10:24; I Pet. 1:18, 19.]
15. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel when [you] give this offering to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves.
16. And you shall take the atonement money of the Israelites and use it [exclusively] for the service of the Tent of Meeting, that it may bring the Israelites to remembrance before the Lord, to make atonement for yourselves.
17. And the Lord said to Moses,