Exodus 24

24 ¹ He said to Moses, "Come up to me — you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel — and bow in worship from a distance." ² Only Moses may approach me; the others must not approach, and the people must not go up with him.

³ Moses came and told the people all our Father's words and all the rules. All the people answered as one, "Everything our Father has said, we will do."

⁴ Moses wrote down all the words of our Father, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the mountain's foot, with twelve pillars for Israel's twelve tribes. ⁵ He sent young Israelite men who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as peace offerings to our Father. ⁶ Moses took half the blood, put it in basins; the other half he splashed on the altar. ⁷ Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. They said, "Everything our Father has spoken, we will do and obey."

⁸ Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, the blood of the covenant our Father made with you, based on all these words." ^a a v8 The blood sealed the covenant between the people and our Father; Jesus took up these very words over the cup — "this is my blood of the covenant" — making his own blood the seal of the new covenant that brings us home.

⁹ Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, ¹⁰ They saw the Father of Israel; under his feet, something like a pavement of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. ¹¹ He did not lay a hand on Israel's leaders; they saw our Father, ate, and drank.

¹² Our Father told Moses, "Come up the mountain to me and stay there; I will give you stone tablets with the law and commandment I wrote to teach them."

¹³ Moses set out with Joshua his assistant, and Moses went up the mountain of our Father. ¹⁴ He told the elders, "Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are with you—whoever has a dispute may go to them."

¹⁵ When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, ¹⁶ The glory of our Father settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days, and on the seventh day he called to Moses from within the cloud. ¹⁷ To the Israelites, our Father's glory looked like a consuming fire on the mountaintop. ¹⁸ Moses entered the cloud and climbed the mountain; Moses stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.