⁴⁰ Yahweh said to Moses, “Count all the firstborn males of the children of Israel from a month old and upward, and take the number of their names. ⁴¹ You shall take the Levites for me—I am Yahweh—instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel; and the livestock of the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the livestock of the children of Israel.”

⁴² Moses counted, as Yahweh commanded him, all the firstborn among the children of Israel. ⁴³ All the firstborn males according to the number of names from a month old and upward, of those who were counted of them, were twenty-two thousand two hundred seventy-three.

⁴⁴ Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ⁴⁵ “Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel, and the livestock of the Levites instead of their livestock; and the Levites shall be mine. I am Yahweh. ⁴⁶ For the redemption of the two hundred seventy-three of the firstborn of the children of Israel who exceed the number of the Levites, ⁴⁷ you shall take five shekels apiece for each one; according to the shekel^[a] of the sanctuary you shall take them (the shekel is twenty gerahs^[b]); ⁴⁸ and you shall give the money, with which their remainder is redeemed, to Aaron and to his sons.”

⁴⁹ Moses took the redemption money from those who exceeded the number of those who were redeemed by the Levites; ⁵⁰ from the firstborn of the children of Israel he took the money, one thousand three hundred sixty-five shekels,^[c] according to the shekel of the sanctuary; ⁵¹ and Moses gave the redemption money to Aaron and to his sons, according to Yahweh’s word, as Yahweh commanded Moses.