⁴ This is the thing that ye shall do; A third part of you entering on the sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters of the doors;

²⁵ And their brethren, which were in their villages, were to come after seven days from time to time with them.

³ Now the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and upward: and their number by their polls, man by man, was thirty and eight thousand.

⁴ Of which, twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the LORD; and six thousand were officers and judges:

⁵ Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.

⁶ And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi, namely, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

³ And David distributed them, both Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, according to their offices in their service.

⁴ And there were more chief men found of the sons of Eleazar than of the sons of Ithamar, and thus were they divided. Among the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen chief men of the house of their fathers, and eight among the sons of Ithamar according to the house of their fathers.

⁵ Thus were they divided by lot, one sort with another; for the governors of the sanctuary, and governors of the house of God, were of the sons of Eleazar, and of the sons of Ithamar.

⁶ And Shemaiah the son of Nethaneel the scribe, one of the Levites, wrote them before the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and before the chief of the fathers of the priests and Levites: one principal household being taken for Eleazar, and one taken for Ithamar.

¹³ And they cast lots, as well the small as the great, according to the house of their fathers, for every gate.

¹⁴ And the lot eastward fell to Shelemiah. Then for Zechariah his son, a wise counselor, they cast lots; and his lot came out northward.

¹⁵ To Obededom southward; and to his sons the house of Asuppim.

¹⁶ To Shuppim and Hosah the lot came forth westward, with the gate Shallecheth, by the causeway of the going up, ward against ward.

⁸ And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course,

⁹ According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.