25 And the Lord said to Moses,
2 Speak to the Israelites, that they take for Me an offering. From every man who gives it willingly and ungrudgingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
3 This is the offering you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze,
4 Blue, purple, and scarlet [stuff] and fine twined linen and goats’ hair,
5 Rams’ skins tanned red, goatskins, dolphin or porpoise skins, acacia wood,
6 Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense,
7 Onyx stones, and stones for setting in the ephod and in the breastplate.
8 Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.(A)
9 And you shall make it according to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle or dwelling and the pattern of all the furniture of it.
10 They shall make an ark of acacia wood: two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.
11 You shall overlay the ark with pure gold, inside and out, and make a gold crown, a rim or border, around its top.
12 You shall cast four gold rings and attach them to the four lower corners of it, two rings on either side.
13 You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold,
14 And put the poles through the rings on the ark’s sides, by which to carry it.
15 The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it [that the ark be not touched].
16 And you shall put inside the ark the Testimony [the Ten Commandments] which I will give you.
17 And you shall make a mercy seat (a covering) of pure gold, two cubits and a half long and a cubit and a half wide.
18 And you shall make two cherubim (winged angelic figures) of [solid] hammered gold on the two ends of the mercy seat.
19 Make one cherub on each end, making the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat, on the two ends of it.
20 And the cherubim shall spread out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, facing each other and looking down toward the mercy seat.
21 You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony [the Ten Commandments] that I will give you.
22 There I will meet with you and, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the Testimony, I will speak intimately with you of all which I will give you in commandment to the Israelites.
23 Also, make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long, one cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high [for the showbread].
24 You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a crown, a rim or molding, of gold around the top of it;
25 And make a frame of a handbreadth around and below the top of it and put around it a gold molding as a border.
26 You shall make for it four rings of gold and fasten them at the four corners that are on the table’s four legs.
27 Close against the frame shall the rings be as places for the poles to pass to carry the table [of showbread].
28 You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them.
29 And you shall make its plates [for showbread] and cups [for incense], and its flagons and bowls [for liquids in sacrifice]; make them of pure gold.
30 And you shall set the showbread (the bread of the Presence) on the table before Me always.(B)
31 You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. Of beaten and turned work shall the lampstand be made, both its base and its shaft; its cups, its knobs, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it.
32 Six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the lampstand out of the one side and three branches out of its other side;
33 Three cups made like almond blossoms, each with a knob and a flower on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms on the other branch with a knob and a flower; so for the six branches coming out of the lampstand;
34 And on the [center shaft] itself you shall [make] four cups like almond blossoms with their knobs and their flowers.
35 Also make a knob [on the shaft] under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand and one piece with it;
36 Their knobs and their branches shall be of one piece with it; the whole of it one beaten work of pure gold.
37 And you shall make the lamps of the [lampstand] to include a [a]seventh one [at the top of the shaft]. [The priests] shall set up the [seven] lamps of it so they may give light in front of it.
38 Its snuffers and its ashtrays shall be of pure gold.
39 Use a talent of pure gold for it, including all these utensils.
40 And see to it that you copy [exactly] their pattern which was shown you on the mountain.(C)
Footnotes
- Exodus 25:37 Certain Biblical critics in the past doubted the existence of the tabernacle and asserted that the concept of a sevenfold lamp was unknown until hundreds of years later, in Babylonian times (600 b.c.). The first objective evidence to the contrary came to light in W. F. Albright’s excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim, south of Jerusalem, where he found seven-sprouted lamps from about 1200 b.c. The seventh season at Dothan yielded three sevenfold lamps from the period 1200-1400 b.c., showing again that this was not a late idea (Joseph P. Free, Near Eastern Archaeology).