⁶ So the king called for Jehoiada the high priest and asked him, “Why haven’t you demanded that the Levites go out and collect the Temple taxes from the towns of Judah and from Jerusalem? Moses, the servant of the Lord, levied this tax on the community of Israel in order to maintain the Tabernacle of the Covenant.^[a]”

¹² “Whenever you take a census of the people of Israel, each man who is counted must pay a ransom for himself to the Lord. Then no plague will strike the people as you count them. ¹³ Each person who is counted must give a small piece of silver as a sacred offering to the Lord. (This payment is half a shekel,^[a] based on the sanctuary shekel, which equals twenty gerahs.) ¹⁴ All who have reached their twentieth birthday must give this sacred offering to the Lord. ¹⁵ When this offering is given to the Lord to purify your lives, making you right with him,^[b] the rich must not give more than the specified amount, and the poor must not give less. ¹⁶ Receive this ransom money from the Israelites, and use it for the care of the Tabernacle.^[c] It will bring the Israelites to the Lord’s attention, and it will purify your lives.”

⁵⁰ Put the Levites in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant,^[a] along with all its furnishings and equipment. They must carry the Tabernacle and all its furnishings as you travel, and they must take care of it and camp around it.

⁷ Moses placed the staffs in the Lord’s presence in the Tabernacle of the Covenant.^{[a] 8} When he went into the Tabernacle of the Covenant the next day, he found that Aaron’s staff, representing the tribe of Levi, had sprouted, budded, blossomed, and produced ripe almonds!

⁴⁴ “Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle^[a] with them through the wilderness. It was constructed according to the plan God had shown to Moses.

³ But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God let you live to see a hundred times as many people as there are now! But why, my lord the king, do you want to do this?”

² “Bring your relatives of the tribe of Levi—your ancestral tribe—to assist you and your sons as you perform the sacred duties in front of the Tabernacle of the Covenant.^[a]