The Lord spoke to Moses: ²  30:12 “When you take a census ³  of the Israelites according to their number, ⁴  then each man is to pay a ransom ⁵  for his life to the Lord when you number them, ⁶  so that there will be no plague among them when you number them. 30:13 Everyone who crosses over to those who are numbered ⁷  is to pay this: a half shekel ⁸  according to the shekel of the sanctuary ⁹  (a shekel weighs twenty gerahs). The half shekel is to be an offering ¹⁰  to the Lord. 30:14 Everyone who crosses over to those numbered, from twenty years old and up, is to pay an offering to the Lord. 30:15 The rich are not to increase it, ¹¹  and the poor are not to pay less than the half shekel when giving ¹²  the offering of the Lord, to make atonement ¹³  for your lives. 30:16 You are to receive the atonement money ¹⁴  from the Israelites and give it for the service ¹⁵  of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial ¹⁶  for the Israelites before the Lord, to make atonement ¹⁷  for your lives.”