³⁴ Just as the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the covenant, for safekeeping.^(A)

²¹ In the tent of meeting, outside the curtain that is before the covenant, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a perpetual ordinance to be observed throughout their generations by the Israelites.^(A)

²¹ You shall put the cover on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I am giving you.^(A)

¹⁶ You shall put the covenant that I am giving you into the ark.^(A)

¹⁰ And the Lord said to Moses, “Put back the staff of Aaron before the covenant, to be kept as a warning to rebels, so that you may make an end of their complaints against me, or else they will die.”^(A)

²⁰ He took the covenant and put it into the ark and put the poles on the ark and set the cover above the ark,^(A)

The Two Tablets of the Covenant

¹⁸ When God^[a] finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.^(A)

³⁶ and you shall beat some of it into powder and put part of it before the covenant in the tent of meeting, where I shall meet with you; it shall be most holy for you.^(A)

⁶ You shall place it in front of the curtain that is above the ark of the covenant, in front of the cover that is over the covenant, where I will meet with you.^(A)

⁹ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.^(A)