Exodus 28, 29

God loves His new tabernacle. The cherubic curtains, the compass-pointed furniture, the ornate ark, the crowns, and all of it gilded! It's tacky-beautiful, like a McMansion on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

God names Aaron--Moses' mouthpiece brother, in case you've forgotten--and his sons as special envoys to the word of God and dictates a crazy and highly specific dress code for them. The only place you'd ever see anyone wearing a getup like this is at burning man, and even then you'd think the dude was nuts. 

The outfit sounds easy enough: a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, an embroidered coat, a miter, and a girdle. That sounds doable, right? But it turns out that this outfit is the worst Project Runway challenge yet. 

Let's take each piece at a time:

The Ephod: Woven out of "blue, and purple, and scarlet"--again, whatever the hell that is--fine linen, and of course, gold. It goes over one's shoulders, like a poncho, and sports a girdle made of the same material. On the shoulders, set in gold sockets, are two onyx stones, each engraved with six names of the children of Israel. Attach two gold chains to the sockets and you're done!

The Breastplate: Called "the breastplate of judgment," it's worn over the heart and made of the same stuff as the ephod. It sports four rows of three stones, each one engraved with the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. The first row consists of a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle, which is not a weeping abscess but this; the second row should be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; the third a ligure (maybe this?), an agate, and an amethyst; and the last a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. The whole thing is attached to the ephod in a complicated lattice of gold chains and blue lace. I'm sure Velcro would have worked just as well. The breastplate also contains the Urim and Thummim. I don't have all day, so read more about it here. 

The Robe: It's blue, should have a hole in the top--presumably for one's head--with a nice edge so it can't be torn. At the hem should be an alternating pattern of pomegranates and golden bells so that the mice can Aaron when he tries to sneak up on them. 

The Miter: You've seen a miter; it's the post-hole-digger hat the pope wears. But on the front of this one is a gold plate, trimmed in blue lace, engraved with the words “Holiness to the Lord” that acts as a proxy for the iniquity of the children of Israel.

The Coat: Pretty straightforward: it's made of linen.

The Girdle: Made of needlework. Nowadays you can substitute Spanx.

If you put it all together, it looks like this:

Sweet, right? But that's just for Aaron. His sons get coats, girdles, and bonnets "for glory and beauty." Sounds like someone is trying a little too hard to sell them on the bonnets.

But, you may be asking, isn't there something missing? You bet there is: pants. God wants Aaron and his sons to wear pants, not trusting them, I suppose to figure that one out for themselves. 

Now that everyone's suited up, it's time to get all hallowed. As you can imagine it involves smearing oil and the blood of bulls and rams all over Aaron and his sons and burning the animals as an offering and waving bread and meat at the Lord. Or as the Israelites call it, a typical Saturday night.