1On the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the Wilderness of Sinai. He said:
2“Take a census of the whole congregation of Israel by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one.
3You and Aaron are to number those who are twenty years of age or older by their divisions—everyone who can serve in Israel’s army.
4And one man from each tribe, the head of each family, must be there with you.
5These are the names of the men who are to assist you:
16These men were appointed from the congregation; they were the leaders of the tribes of their fathers, the heads of the clans of Israel.
17So Moses and Aaron took these men who had been designated by name,
18and on the first day of the second month they assembled the whole congregation and recorded their ancestry by clans and families, counting one by one the names of those twenty years of age or older,
19just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
44These were the men numbered by Moses and Aaron, with the assistance of the twelve leaders of Israel, each one representing his family.
45So all the Israelites twenty years of age or older who could serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families.
46And all those counted totaled 603,550.
47The Levites, however, were not numbered along with them by the tribe of their fathers.
48For the LORD had said to Moses:
49“Do not number the tribe of Levi in the census with the other Israelites.
50Instead, you are to appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the Testimony, all its furnishings, and everything in it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its articles, care for it, and camp around it.
51Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever it is to be pitched, the Levites are to set it up. Any outsider who goes near it must be put to death.
52The Israelites are to camp by their divisions, each man in his own camp and under his own standard.
53But the Levites are to camp around the tabernacle of the Testimony and watch over it, so that no wrath will fall on the congregation of Israel. So the Levites are responsible for the tabernacle of the Testimony.”
54Thus the Israelites did everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.