¹Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ²“Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘When you light the lamps, do it at the front of the lampstand, and the seven lamps will shine.’ ” ³And Aaron did so, in front of the lampstand. He lit its lamps, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁴And this is the way the lampstand is made: it is beaten gold. Up to its main stem and up to its flower it is beaten work. According to the vision which the Lord showed Moses, so he made the lampstand. ⁵Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ⁶“Take the Levites from among the sons of Israel and cleanse them. ⁷And this is how you will act towards them to cleanse them: sprinkle sin-offering water over them, and they shall pass a razor over all their body, and they shall wash their clothes, and they shall cleanse themselves. ⁸And they will take a bull-calf of the oxen and its meal-offering – fine flour mixed with oil – and you will take a second bull-calf of the oxen as a sin-offering. ⁹And you will have the Levites approach the tent of contact, and you will assemble the whole congregation of the sons of Israel. ¹⁰And you will have the Levites come near before the Lord, and the sons of Israel will lay their hands on the Levites, ¹¹and Aaron will wave the Levites from the sons of Israel as a wave-offering before the Lord, and their task will be to do the Lord's service. ¹²And the Levites will lay their hands on the head of the bulls, and you shall offer one as a sin-offering and one as a burnt offering to the Lord, to atone for the Levites. ¹³And you will set the Levites before Aaron, and before his sons, and you will wave them as a wave-offering to the Lord. ¹⁴And you will separate the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and the Levites will be mine. ¹⁵And after that the Levites will come to serve the tent of contact, and you will cleanse them and wave them as a wave-offering, ¹⁶for they are wholly given to me from among the sons of Israel instead of those who open every womb. I have taken them instead of the firstborn of all the sons of Israel for myself. ¹⁷For every firstborn among the sons of Israel is mine, among man and among cattle. On the day when I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them to myself. ¹⁸So I have taken the Levites instead of every firstborn among the sons of Israel, ¹⁹and I have given the Levites as people given to Aaron and to his sons from among the sons of Israel, to do the work of the sons of Israel in the tent of contact, and to atone for the sons of Israel, so that there will be no plague among the sons of Israel when the sons of Israel approach the holy place.” ²⁰And Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the sons of Israel acted towards the Levites according to everything that the Lord had commanded Moses in respect of the Levites. The sons of Israel acted towards them like that. ²¹So the Levites had themselves propitiated for sins, and they washed their clothes, and Aaron waved them as a wave-offering before the Lord, and Aaron atoned for them to make them clean. ²²Then after that the Levites came in order to carry out their duty in the tent of contact before Aaron and before his sons. As the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they acted towards them. ²³Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ²⁴“This is what the Levites have to do: from twenty-five years and above, each will go to engage in service, in the work of the tent of contact. ²⁵But from fifty years he will retire from the workforce, and he will not perform the service any more, ²⁶but he will serve with his brothers at the tent of contact, to keep guard, but he will not do any work. So you will act towards the Levites in their duties.”