1 And of the blue, and purple, and scarlet, they made cloths of service, to do service in the holy place, and made the holy garments for Aaron; as the Lord commanded Moses.

2 And he made the ephod of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen.

3 And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work.

4 They made shoulderpieces for it, to couple it together: by the two edges was it coupled together.

5 And the curious girdle of his ephod, that was upon it, was of the same, according to the work thereof; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen; as the Lord commanded Moses.

6 And they wrought onyx stones inclosed in ouches of gold, graven, as signets are graven, with the names of the children of Israel.

7 And he put them on the shoulders of the ephod, that they should be stones for a memorial to the children of Israel; as the Lord commanded Moses.

8 And he made the breastplate of cunning work, like the work of the ephod; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen.

9 It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being doubled.

We turn now to the creation of the priestly garments. Today covers the ephod and the breastplate on the chest, as well as the shoulder-pieces.

A new detail that we learn in these verses is how gold was worked into the fabric of the ephod and breastplate. In the original instructions we were simply told that they were to be made “of gold, of blue, and of purple, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work.” From that description one might have assumed that the “gold” simply meant linen dyed the color of gold, or just gold clasps around the edges, but today we learn that fine wires of gold were actually woven as strands throughout the fabric. Certainly, a more arduous task, but far more impressive. Also, far more symbolic, for the gold seems to represent God interwoven among the strands of our own lives.

Moving on to the breastplate, one detail I did not touch on the first time around is that thing is said to be “doubled.” This seems to suggest that it was actually one span by two spans, then folded over to make a square. This explains how it could function as a pocket to hold the Urim and Thummim.