Exodus
Chapter 34
1 God told Moses, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets that you broke.”
2 Get ready in the morning, go up Mount Sinai, and meet me at the top of the mountain.
3 No one should go up with you, and no one should be seen anywhere on the mountain; also, do not let sheep or cattle graze in front of that mountain.
4 He cut two stone tablets like the first ones; Moses got up early in the morning, went up Mount Sinai as God told him, and carried the two stone tablets.
5 God came down in the cloud, stood with him there, and announced his own name.
6 God went by him and said, “God, God, kind and forgiving, patient, full of love and truth.”
7 God shows mercy to thousands, forgives wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin, but does not ignore the guilty; He punishes the parents’ sins on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
8 Moses quickly bowed his head to the ground and worshiped.
9 He said, “If I have now found favor with you, God, please, go with us. This is a stubborn people. Forgive our wrongs and sins, and accept us as your own.”
10 He said, “Look, I am making a promise: I will perform amazing acts for your people that have never been done anywhere on Earth or in any nation. All the people around you will see what God will do, and it will be an awesome thing that I’ll do with you.”
11 Pay attention to what I order you today: see, I will push out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12 Be careful not to agree with the people living in the place you’re going, so it doesn’t become a trap for you.
13 You must destroy their altars, break their idols, and cut down their sacred places.
14 You must not worship any other god, because God, who is named Jealous, is a jealous God.
15 Make sure you don’t agree with the people living in the land, or they might follow their own gods, offer sacrifices to them, invite you, and then you eat from their offerings.
16 If your sons marry their daughters, their daughters will chase after their own gods and will lead your sons to do the same.
17 Do not make any metal gods for yourself.
18 Celebrate the feast of bread without yeast. For seven days, eat bread without yeast as I told you, during the month of Abib, because that is when you left Egypt.
19 Everything born first from a mother is mine, and every first male born from your livestock, whether cow or sheep.
20 You must trade a lamb for the firstborn donkey. If you don’t trade it, then you must kill the donkey. You must also buy back your firstborn sons. No one should come before me with nothing.
21 Work for six days, but rest on the seventh day; you should rest both when you plow and when you harvest.
22 Celebrate the Feast of Weeks when you harvest the first wheat, and have a gathering festival at the end of the year.
23 Three times a year, all your boys must go before God, the God of Israel.
24 I will force the nations out of your way and expand your territory. No one will want your land when you go to worship God three times a year.
25 You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with yeast; and do not let the passover feast sacrifice remain until morning.
26 Bring the first of your land’s early crops to God’s house. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
27 God said to Moses, “Write these words down, because with these words I have made an agreement with you and with Israel.”
28 He stayed with God for forty days and nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote the Ten Commandments, the words of the agreement, on the tablets.
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of testimony in his hand, he did not know that his face was radiant because he had spoken with God.
30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was glowing and they were scared to go near him.
31 Moses called them, and Aaron and all the leaders came back to him, and Moses spoke with them.
32 Later, all the Israelites approached, and Moses told them everything God had said to him on Mount Sinai.
33 After Moses finished talking with them, he covered his face with a veil.
34 But when Moses went to speak with God, he removed the veil until he left. After leaving, he told the people of Israel what he was told to say.
35 The Israelites saw that Moses’ face was glowing, and Moses covered his face with a veil until he went to talk with God again.