¹ These are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai.

² And these the names of the sons of Aaron: his firstborn Nadab, then Abiu, and Eleazar, and Ithamar.

³ These the names of the sons of Aaron the priests that were anointed, and whose hands were filled and consecrated, to do the functions of priesthood.

⁴ Now Nadab and Abiu died, without children, when they offered strange fire before the Lord, in the desert of Sinai: and Eleazar and Ithamar performed the priestly office in the presence of Aaron their father.

⁵ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

⁶ Bring the tribe of Levi, and make them stand in the sight of Aaron the priest to minister to him, and let them watch,

⁷ And observe whatsoever appertaineth to the service of the multitude before the tabernacle of the testimony,

⁸ And let them keep the vessels of the tabernacle, serving in the ministry thereof.

⁹ And thou shalt give the Levites for a gift,

¹⁰ To Aaron and to his sons, to whom they are delivered by the children of Israel. But thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons over the service of priesthood. The stranger that approacheth to minister, shall be put to death.

¹¹ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying :

¹² I have taken the Levites from the children of Israel, for every firstborn that openeth the womb among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine.

¹³ For every firstborn is mine: since I struck the firstborn in the land of Egypt: I have sanctified to myself whatsoever is firstborn in Israel both of man and beast, they are mine: I am the Lord.

¹⁴ And the Lord spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, saying:

¹⁵ Number the sons of Levi by the houses of their fathers and their families, every male from one month and upward.

¹⁶ Moses numbered them as the Lord had commanded.

¹⁷ And there were found sons of Levi by their names, Gerson and Caath and Merari.

¹⁸ The sons of Gerson: Lebni and Semei.

¹⁹ The sons of Caath: Amram, and Jesaar, Hebron and Oziel:

²⁰ The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi.

²¹ Of Gerson were two families, the Lebnites, and the Semeites:

²² Of which were numbered, people of the male sex from one month and upward, seven thousand five hundred.

²³ These shall pitch behind the tabernacle on the west,

²⁴ Under their prince Eliasaph the son of Lael.

²⁵ And their charge shall be in the tabernacle of the covenant:

²⁶ The tabernacle itself and the cover thereof, the hanging that is drawn before the doors of the tabernacle of the covenant, and the curtains of the court: the hanging also that is hanged in the entry of the court of the tabernacle, and whatsoever belongeth to the rite of the altar, the cords of the tabernacle, and all the furniture thereof.

²⁷ Of the kindred of Caath come the families of the Amramites and Jesaarites and Hebronites and Ozielites. These are the families of the Caathites reckoned up by their names:

²⁸ All of the male sex from one month and upward, eight thousand six hundred: they shall have the guard of the sanctuary,

²⁹ And shall camp on the south side.

³⁰ And their prince shall be Elisaphan the son of Oziel:

³¹ And they shall keep the ark, and the table and the candlestick, the altars, and the vessels of the sanctuary, wherewith they minister, and the veil, and all the furniture of this kind.

³² And the prince of the princes of the Levites, Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, shall be over them that watch for the guard of the sanctuary.

³³ And of Merari are the families of the Moholites, and Musites, reckoned up by their names :

³⁴ All of the male kind from one month and upward, six thousand two hundred.

³⁵ Their prince Suriel the son of Abihaiel: they shall camp on the north side.

³⁶ Under their custody shall be the boards of the tabernacle, and the bars, and the pillars and their sockets, and all things that pertain to this kind of service:

³⁷ And the pillars of the court round about with their sockets, and the pins with their cords.

³⁸ Before the tabernacle of the covenant, that is to say on the east side, shall Moses and Aaron camp, with their sons, having the custody of the sanctuary, in the midst of the children of Israel. What stranger soever cometh unto it, shall be put to death.

³⁹ All the Levites, that Moses and Aaron numbered according to the precept of the Lord, by their families, of the male kind from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand.

⁴⁰ And the Lord said to Moses: Number the firstborn of the male sex of the children of Israel, from one month and upward, and thou shalt take the sum of them.

⁴¹ And thou shalt take the Levites to me for all the firstborn of the children of Israel, I am the Lord: and their cattle for all the firstborn of the cattle of the children of Israel:

⁴² Moses reckoned up, as the Lord had commanded, the firstborn of the children of Israel:

⁴³ And the males by their names, from one month and upward, were twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three.

⁴⁴ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saving:

⁴⁵ Take the Levites for the firstborn of the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites for their cattle, and the Levites shall be mine. I am the Lord.

⁴⁶ But for the price of the two hundred and seventy-three, of the firstborn of the children of Israel, that exceed the number of the Levites,

⁴⁷ Thou shalt take five sides for every head, according to the weight of the sanctuary. A sicle hath twenty obols.

⁴⁸ And then shalt give the money to Aaron and his sons, the price of them that are above.

⁴⁹ Moses therefore took the money of them that were above, and whom they had redeemed from the Levites,

⁵⁰ For the firstborn of the children of Israel, one thousand three hundred and sixty-five sicles, according to the weight of the sanctuary,

⁵¹ And gave it to Aaron and his sons, according to the word that the Lord had commanded him.

¹ How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, And hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

² The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

³ He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.

⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.

⁵ The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

⁶ He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly: Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

⁷ The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

⁸ Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

⁹ Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

¹¹ My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.

¹² They tell their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.

¹³ What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, but have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

¹⁶ All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

¹⁷ Yahweh has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

²⁰ Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, [and] not pitied.

²² You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; There was none that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed.