1 Chronicles 15:1–24

Plans to Move the Ark to Jerusalem

¹Now David built houses for himself in the city of David; and he prepared a place for the ark of God and ^apitched a tent for it.

²Then David said, “^aNo one is to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of God and to minister to Him forever.”

³And ^aDavid assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord ^bto its place which he had prepared for it.

⁴David gathered together the sons of Aaron and ^athe Levites:

⁵of the sons of Kohath, Uriel the chief, and 120 of his ¹relatives;

⁶of the sons of Merari, Asaiah the chief, and 220 of his relatives;

⁷of the sons of Gershom, Joel the chief, and 130 of his relatives;

⁸of the sons of Elizaphan, Shemaiah the chief, and 200 of his relatives;

⁹of the sons of Hebron, Eliel the chief, and 80 of his relatives;

¹⁰of the sons of Uzziel, Amminadab the chief, and 112 of his relatives.

¹¹Then David called for ^aZadok and ^bAbiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel and Amminadab,

¹²and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ households of the Levites; ^aconsecrate yourselves both you and your relatives, that you may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel ^bto the place that I have prepared for it.

¹³“^aBecause you did not carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.”

^14aSo the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel.

¹⁵The sons of ^athe Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles thereon, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord.

¹⁶Then David spoke to the chiefs of the Levites ^ato appoint their relatives the singers, with instruments of music, harps, lyres, loud-sounding cymbals, to raise sounds of joy.

¹⁷So ^athe Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel, and from his relatives, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and from the sons of Merari their relatives, Ethan the son of Kushaiah,

¹⁸and with them their relatives of the second rank, Zechariah, ¹Ben, Jaaziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-edom and Jeiel, the gatekeepers.

¹⁹So the singers, Heman, Asaph and Ethan were appointed to sound aloud cymbals of bronze;

²⁰and Zechariah, Aziel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Unni, Eliab, Maaseiah and Benaiah, with ¹harps tuned to ^aalamoth;

²¹and Mattithiah, Eliphelehu, Mikneiah, Obed-edom, Jeiel and Azaziah, to lead with ¹lyres tuned to ^athe sheminith.

²²Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was in charge of the singing; he gave instruction in singing because he was skillful.

²³Berechiah and Elkanah were gatekeepers for the ark.

²⁴Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah and Eliezer, the priests, ^ablew the trumpets before the ark of God. Obed-edom and Jehiah also were gatekeepers for the ark.