Exodus 34

1The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two new tablets out of stone, like the first pair. On them I will write the same words that stood on the first tablets, which you smashed. 2Be prepared for the morning. When it comes, climb Mount Sinai and take your place before me on its summit. 3Nobody is to climb with you, and nobody else may be seen anywhere on the mountain. Keep even the flocks and herds from grazing near the front of that mountain.” 4So Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Early next morning he went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, carrying the two stone tablets in his hand. 5The LORD came down in the cloud and took his place there beside Moses, and he announced his name, the LORD. 6The LORD passed in front of Moses and called out, “The LORD, the LORD, a God of tender compassion and grace, slow to grow angry, rich in faithful love and in truth, 7who keeps faithful love for thousands and forgives wrongdoing, rebellion and sin. Yet he will never acquit the guilty; he brings the wrongdoing of parents upon their children and grandchildren, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8Moses quickly sank down with his face to the ground in worship. 9He said, “Lord, if I really have found favor with you, then please, Lord, go in our midst. These are a stubborn people. Forgive our wrongdoing and our sin, and claim us as your own possession.” 10The LORD said, “Here and now I am making a covenant. In front of all your people I will work marvels such as have never been brought into being anywhere on earth or in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see what the LORD does, for what I am about to do with you will fill them with awe. 11Take care to keep what I am commanding you today. Watch: I am about to drive out ahead of you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12Watch yourself, so that you make no covenant with the people living in the land you are entering; otherwise it will become a trap set in your midst. 13Rather, you are to tear down their altars, shatter their standing stones, and chop down their Asherah poles. 14Bow down to no other god. The LORD is named Jealous; he is a jealous God. 15Do not make a covenant with the people who live in the land. For when they give themselves like prostitutes to their gods and offer sacrifices to them, someone will invite you, and you will eat from the sacrifice, 16and you will take some of their daughters as wives for your sons, and their daughters, prostituting themselves after their gods, will draw your sons after their gods in the same way. 17Do not make yourself gods cast from metal. 18Keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread: for seven days your bread is to be unleavened, as I commanded you, at its set time in the month of Abib, because it was in Abib that you left Egypt. 19Whatever first opens the womb is mine, including every male firstborn among your livestock, of cattle or of sheep and goats. 20Every firstborn donkey you are to redeem by giving a lamb in its place; if you will not redeem it, you must break its neck. And you are to redeem every firstborn son of yours. No one is to come before me with empty hands. 21For six days you may do your work, but the seventh day you are to keep as a day of rest. Rest even when the fields need plowing or the harvest is ready. 22Keep the Feast of Weeks when the first of the wheat harvest comes in, and the Feast of Ingathering as the year comes round. 23Three times a year every male among you is to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. 24I will dispossess nations to make room for you and push your borders outward. And while you are away three times a year, going up to appear before the LORD your God, no one will scheme to seize your land. 25When you slaughter a sacrifice for me, nothing leavened is to be offered with its blood. And nothing of the sacrifice of the Passover feast may be left over until morning. 26The choicest of the first produce from your land you are to bring into the house of the LORD your God. Never boil a young goat in the milk of its own mother.”

27The LORD told Moses, “Put these words in writing, for they are the terms on which I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28Moses remained there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights; he ate no food and drank no water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words. 29Moses came down from Mount Sinai holding the two tablets of the testimony. As he descended the mountain, he was unaware that the skin of his face shone with rays of light, because he had been speaking with God. 30When Aaron and all the Israelites looked at Moses, there was the skin of his face, shining, and they feared to approach him. 31Moses called them over, so Aaron came back to him, together with all the leaders of the community, and Moses spoke with them. 32After that all the Israelites came near, and Moses passed on to them as commands everything the LORD had told him on Mount Sinai. 33Once Moses was done speaking with them, he covered his face with a veil. 34Each time Moses went into the presence of the LORD to talk with him, he kept the veil off until he came out again. Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded to say. 35The Israelites saw the light shining from the skin of Moses’ face, and Moses would cover his face with the veil again until he went in to speak with him.