9. Do not offer any unholy incense on this altar, or any burnt offerings, grain offerings, or liquid offerings.
10. “Once a year Aaron must purify the altar by smearing its horns with blood from the offering made to purify the people from their sin. This will be a regular, annual event from generation to generation, for this is the lord’s most holy altar.”
11. Then the lord said to Moses,
12. “Whenever you take a census of the people of Israel, each man who is counted must pay a ransom for himself to the lord. Then no plague will strike the people as you count them.
13. Each person who is counted must give a small piece of silver as a sacred offering to the lord. (This payment is half a shekel, based on the sanctuary shekel, which equals twenty gerahs.)