Exodus 38
The altar for offering sacrifices
1Bezalel built an altar of acacia wood for offering sacrifices. It was two and a quarter metres square and one and a third metres high 2with each of its four corners sticking up like the horn of a bull, and it was completely covered with bronze. 3The equipment for the altar was also made of bronze—the pans for the hot ashes, the shovels, the meat forks, and the fire pans. 4Half-way up the altar he built a ledge around it and covered the bottom half of the altar with a decorative bronze grating. 5Then he attached a bronze ring beneath the ledge at the four corners to put the poles through. 6He covered two acacia wood poles with bronze and 7put them through the rings for carrying the altar, which was shaped like an open box.
The large bronze bowl
8Bezalel made a large bowl and a stand out of bronze from the mirrors of the women who helped at the entrance to the sacred tent.
The courtyard around the sacred tent
9-17Around the sacred tent Bezalel built a courtyard forty-four metres long on the south and north and twenty-two metres wide on the east and west. He used twenty bronze posts on bronze stands for the south and north and ten for the west. Then he hung a curtain of fine linen on the posts along each of these three sides by using silver hooks and rods. He placed three bronze posts on each side of the entrance at the east and hung a curtain six and two thirds metres wide on each set of posts.
18-19For the entrance to the courtyard, Bezalel made a curtain nine metres long, which he hung on four bronze posts that were set on bronze stands. This curtain was the same height as the one for the rest of the courtyard and was made of fine linen embroidered and woven with blue, purple, and red wool. He hung the curtain on the four posts, using silver hooks and rods. 20The pegs for the tent and for the curtain around the tent were made of bronze.
The sacred tent
21-23Bezalel had worked closely with Oholiab, who was an expert at designing and engraving, and at embroidering blue, purple, and red wool. The two of them completed the work that the LORD had commanded.
Moses made Aaron's son Ithamar responsible for keeping record of the metals used for the sacred tent. 24According to the official weights, the amount of gold given was a thousand kilogrammes, 25and the silver that was collected when the people were counted came to three thousand four hundred and thirty kilogrammes. 26Everyone who was counted paid the required amount, and there was a total of 603,550 men who were twenty years old or older.
27Thirty-four kilogrammes of the silver were used to make each of the one hundred stands for the sacred tent and the curtain. 28The remaining thirty kilogrammes of silver were used for the hooks and rods and for covering the tops of the posts.
29Two thousand four hundred and twenty-five kilogrammes of bronze were given. 30And it was used to make the stands for the entrance to the tent, the altar and its grating, the equipment for the altar, 31the stands for the posts that surrounded the courtyard, including those at the entrance to the courtyard, and the pegs for the tent and the courtyard.
Contemporary English Version (Anglicised) 2012 © British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
Audio text: © 1991 American Bible Society
Audio: ℗ 1995 Hosanna
℗ Voices 1997 ABS, Music 1997 Hosanna