Exodus 35

¹Moses gathered together the whole Israelite community and said to them: These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do:

Instructions for the Sabbath

²Do your work for six days, but the seventh day should be holy to you, a Sabbath of complete rest for the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath will be put to death.³Don’t start a fire in any of your homes on the Sabbath day.

Preparing to build the dwelling

⁴Moses said to the whole Israelite community, This is what the LORD has commanded:⁵Collect gift offerings for the LORD from all of you. Whoever freely wants to give should bring the LORD’s gift offerings: gold, silver, and copper;⁶blue, purple, and deep red yarns; fine linen; goats’ hair;⁷rams’ skins dyed red; beaded leather; acacia wood;⁸the oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet-smelling incense;⁹gemstones; and gems for setting in the priest’s vest and in the priest’s chest pendant.

¹⁰All of you who are skilled in crafts should come forward and make everything that the LORD has commanded:¹¹the dwelling, its tent and its covering, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its posts, and its bases,¹²the chest with its poles and its cover, the veil for a screen,¹³the table with its poles and all its equipment, the bread of the presence,¹⁴the lampstand for light with its equipment and its lamps, the oil for the light,¹⁵the incense altar with its poles, the anointing oil and the sweet-smelling incense, the entrance screen for the dwelling’s entrance,¹⁶the altar for entirely burned offerings with its copper grate, its poles, and all its equipment, the washbasin with its stand,¹⁷the courtyard’s drapes, its posts, and its bases, and the screen for the courtyard gate,¹⁸the dwelling’s tent pegs and the courtyard’s tent pegs, and their cords,¹⁹the woven clothing for ministering in the sanctuary, and the holy clothes for Aaron the priest and his sons for their service as priests.

Gifts for building the dwelling

²⁰The whole Israelite community left Moses.²¹Everyone who was excited and eager to participate brought the LORD’s gift offerings to be used for building the meeting tent and all its furnishings and for the holy clothes.²²Both men and women came forward. Everyone who was eager to participate brought pins, earrings, rings, and necklaces, all sorts of gold objects. Everyone raised an uplifted offering of gold to the LORD.²³And everyone who had blue or purple or deep red yarn or fine linen or goats’ hair or rams’ skins dyed red or beaded leather brought them.²⁴Everyone who could make a gift offering of silver or copper brought it as the LORD’s gift offering. Everyone who had acacia wood that could be used in any kind of building work brought it.²⁵All the skilled women spun cloth with their hands, and brought what they had spun in blue and purple and deep red yarns and fine linen.²⁶All the women who were eager to use their skill spun the goats’ hair.²⁷The chiefs brought gemstones and gems to be set in the priest’s vest and the chest pendant,²⁸spices and oil for light and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet-smelling incense.²⁹All the Israelite men and women who were eager to contribute something for the work that the LORD had commanded Moses to do brought it as a spontaneous gift to the LORD.

Moses introduces Bezalel and Oholiab

³⁰Then Moses said to the Israelites: “Look, the LORD has chosen Bezalel, Uri’s son and Hur’s grandson from the tribe of Judah.³¹The LORD has filled him with the divine spirit that will give him skill, ability, and knowledge for every kind of work.³²He will be able to create designs, do metalwork in gold, silver, and copper,³³cut stones for setting, carve wood, do every kind of creative work,³⁴and have the ability to teach others. Both he and Oholiab, Ahisamach’s son from the tribe of Dan,³⁵have been given the skill to do every kind of work done by a gem cutter or a designer or a needleworker in blue, purple, and deep red yarns and in fine linen or a weaver or anyone else doing work or creating designs.