¹² “When you take a census^(A) of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom^(B) for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague^(C) will come on them when you number them. ¹³ Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel,^[a] according to the sanctuary shekel,^(D) which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. ¹⁴ All who cross over, those twenty years old or more,^(E) are to give an offering to the Lord. ¹⁵ The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less^(F) when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives. ¹⁶ Receive the atonement^(G) money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meeting.^(H) It will be a memorial^(I) for the Israelites before the Lord, making atonement for your lives.”

⁹ They went to Hilkiah^(A) the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the temple of God, which the Levites who were the gatekeepers had collected from the people of Manasseh, Ephraim and the entire remnant of Israel and from all the people of Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ Then they entrusted it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the Lord’s temple. These men paid the workers who repaired and restored the temple.

The Temple Tax

²⁴ After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax^(A) came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”