Study Desk

When you take a census of the Israelites to register them, at registration all of them shall give a ransom for their lives to the Lord , so that no plague may come upon them for being registered.

The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you bring this offering to the Lord to make atonement for your lives.

You shall take the atonement money from the Israelites and shall designate it for the service of the tent of meeting; before the Lord it will be a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives.

You shall make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it;

They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die: it shall be a perpetual ordinance for them, for him and for his descendants throughout their generations.

and you shall beat some of it into powder, and put part of it before the covenant in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you; it shall be for you most holy.

When you make incense according to this composition, you shall not make it for yourselves; it shall be regarded by you as holy to the Lord .

in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft.

and the finely worked vestments, the holy vestments for the priest Aaron and the vestments of his sons, for their service as priests,

and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense for the holy place. They shall do just as I have commanded you.

You yourself are to speak to the Israelites: "You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, given in order that you may know that I, the Lord , sanctify you.

You shall keep the sabbath, because it is holy for you; everyone who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it shall be cut off from among the people.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'"

They said to me, ‘Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'

When Moses saw that the people were running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies),

Moses said, "Today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the Lord , each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on yourselves this day."

On the next day Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord ; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin."

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold.

But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you. Nevertheless, when the day comes for punishment, I will punish them for their sin."