1 One finds in the records that the prophet Jeremiah ordered those who were being deported to take some of the fire, as has been mentioned, 2 and that the prophet, after giving them the law, instructed those who were being deported not to forget the commandments of the Lord, or to be led astray in their thoughts on seeing the gold and silver statues and their adornment. 3 And with other similar words he exhorted them that the law should not depart from their hearts. 4 It was also in the same document that the prophet, having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. 5 Jeremiah came and found a cave-dwelling, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense; then he sealed up the entrance. 6 Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the way, but could not find it.

After the first temple was built, the Tent of Meeting was stored away, along with its boards, hooks, bars, pillars, and sockets. Even so, they used only the table which Moses had made, and the candlestick which Moses had made. The candlestick which Moses made did not require oil of anointing, for the first act of sanctification had sanctified it for its time and for all time. When the Ark was stored away, with it were stored away the bottle of manna, the jar of oil for anointing, the staff of Aaron, its buds and flowers, and the chest in which the Philistines had placed wood for the God of Israel. All of them were in the House of the Holy of Holies. And when the Ark was stored away, the commandments were stored away. Who stored it away? Josiah the King stored it away. Why did he do so? When he saw written in the Torah, The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, He commanded the Levites and they hid it away, as it is said, And he said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, put the Holy Ark in the house which Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel, built: You need no longer carry it upon your shoulders.