Instructions for Making the Incense Altar

30 “And you will make an altar for burning incense; you will make it of acacia wood, ² a cubit its length and a cubit its width—it will be square—and two cubits its height, its horns of one piece with it.^{[a] 3} And you will overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides all around and its horns, and you will make for it a gold molding all around. ⁴ And you will make two gold rings for it; under its molding on two opposite sides^[b] you will make them as holders^[c] for poles to carry it with them. ⁵ You will make the poles of acacia wood, and you will overlay them with gold. ⁶ And you will put it before the curtain that is upon the ark of the testimony, before the atonement cover, which is on the testimony, there where I will meet with you.

⁷ “And on it Aaron will turn fragrant incense into smoke; each morning^[d] when he tends the lamps, he will turn it into smoke. ⁸ And when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight,^[e] he will turn it into smoke—incense of continuity—before Yahweh throughout your generations. ⁹ You will not offer on it strange incense or a burnt offering or a grain offering, and you will not pour a libation on it. ¹⁰ And Aaron will make atonement on its horns one time in the year from the blood of the sin offering of the atonement; one time in the year he will make atonement on it throughout your generations; it is a most holy thing for Yahweh.”