The LORD said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone
like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were
on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and
come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there
to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you,
and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks
or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of
stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up
on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand
two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood
with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD
passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no
means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth
generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and
worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O
Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-
necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for
your inheritance.”
And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your
people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the
earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall
see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do
with you.
“Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out
before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you
make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go,
lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their
altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you
shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is
a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of
the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to
their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you
take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore
after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
“You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you
shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time
appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out
from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine, all your male
livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a
donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it
you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall
redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed.
“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.
In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. You shall observe
the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast
of Ingathering at the year's end. Three times in the year shall all
your males appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I
will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one
shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD
your God three times in the year.
“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything
leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain
until the morning. The best of the firstfruits of your ground you
shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a
young goat in its mother's milk.”
And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance
with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He
neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the
words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of
the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses
did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been
talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and
behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come
near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders
of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.
Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them
all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when
Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he
would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and
told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of
Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face
was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again,
until he went in to speak with him.
