There was nothing in the ark except for the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb when the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.
Now therefore, if you will faithfully obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My special possession out of all the nations, for all the earth is Mine.
The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me to the mountain and stay there, and I will give you the stone tablets with law and the commandments which I have written, so that you may teach them.”
When He had made an end of communing with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
Now the Lord said to Moses, “Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread or drink water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
If the ministry that brought death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the Israelites could not look intently at the face of Moses, because of the glory of his countenance, the glory which was to fade away,
These are the words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
which contained the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold, containing the golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.