Numbers 4:1-16 ▼

1 AND the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

2 Take the sum of the sons of Kohath from among the sons of Levi, after their families, by the house of their fathers,

3 From thirty years old and upward to fifty years old, all who can enter into the host to do the work in the tabernacle of the congregation.

4 This is the service of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation concerning the most holy things;

5 And when the camp marches forward, Aaron and his sons shall come in, and they shall take down the covering veil and cover the ark of testimony with it,

6 And shall put on it the covering of badgers' skins, and shall spread over it a cloth all of blue, and shall put in the poles thereof.

7 And upon the table of shewbread they shall spread a cloth of blue, and put upon it the dishes, the spoons, the bowls, the flagons for drink offering; and the continual shewbread shall be on it;

8 And they shall spread thereon a cloth of scarlet, and cover the same with a covering of badgers' skins, and shall put in the poles thereof.

9 And they shall take a cloth of blue, and cover the candlestick of the light and its lamps and its tongs and its snuffdishes and all the oil vessels thereof with which they minister to it;

10 And they shall put it and all its vessels within a covering of badgers' skins, and shall put it upon its poles.

11 And upon the golden altar they shall spread a cloth of blue, and cover it with a covering of badgers' skins, and shall put it upon its poles;

12 And they shall take all the vessels of the ministry wherewith they minister in the sanctuary, and put them in a cloth of blue, and cover them with a covering of badgers' skins, and shall put them on poles;

13 And they shall take apart the altar, and spread a purple cloth over it;

14 And they shall put with it all the vessels thereof, with which they minister upon it, the censers, the meathooks and the shovels and the basins and all the vessels of the altar; and they shall spread upon it a covering of badgers' skins, and put in its poles.

15 And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to march after that, the sons of Kohath shall come in to bear it, that they may not touch any holy thing, lest they die. These things are to be borne by the sons of Kohath in the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

16 And to the office of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest pertains the charge of the oil for the light and the sweet incense and the daily meal offering and the anointing oil and the oversight of all the tabernacle and of all the things that are in it and of the sanctuary and its vessels.