Cut New Tablets
34 1 Our Father told Moses, "Carve two stone tablets for yourself, like the first. I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke." 2 "Be ready in the morning. Come up Mount Sinai then, and present yourself to me there on the mountaintop." 3 No one may come up with you, or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even flocks or herds may graze facing that mountain.
4 Moses cut two stone tablets like the first, rose early, went up Mount Sinai as our Father had commanded him, carrying the two stone tablets in his hand. 5 Then our Father came down in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of our Father. 6 Our Father passed before him, proclaiming, "your Father — compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and overflowing with covenant love and faithfulness, 7 keeping covenant love for thousands, forgiving guilt, rebellion, and sin; yet he will not clear the guilty, bringing the guilt of parents on children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generation."
8 Moses quickly bowed to the ground and worshiped. 9 He said, "If I have found favor in your eyes, Sovereign Father, let the Sovereign Father go among us, for this is a stubborn people. Forgive our guilt and our sin, and take us as your inheritance."
10 He said, "I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do wonders never created in any nation or on all earth. All the people among whom you live will see your Father's work, for what I am doing with you is awesome." 11 Keep what I command you today. I am driving out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 12 Be careful: don't make a covenant with those living in the land you're entering, or they'll become a trap among you. 13 Instead, tear down their altars, smash their pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles. 14 "Don't bow to any other god—your Father's name is Jealous; he is a jealous Father." a a v14 Our Father's jealousy is not petty envy but the fierce, protective love of a husband for his bride — he will not share his children's hearts with idols that destroy them.
15 Make no covenant with the land's residents, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat from their sacrifice; 16 and you take their daughters for your sons, and their daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, drawing your sons to do the same.
17 "You must not make cast-metal gods for yourselves."
18 "Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread: eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the set time in the month of Abib—for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt."
19 Every firstborn opening the womb is mine—every male of your livestock, the firstborn of ox and sheep. 20 Redeem a donkey's firstborn with a lamb; if you don't redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your sons' firstborn. No one may appear before me empty-handed.
21 Six days you work; the seventh day you rest — even during plowing and harvest, rest.
22 Keep the Feast of Weeks with the wheat harvest's firstfruits, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's turn. 23 "Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Sovereign Father of Israel." 24 For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will crave your land when you go up to appear before your Father three times a year.
25 Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything containing yeast, and do not let the sacrifice of the Passover feast remain until morning.
26 Bring the best firstfruits of your soil to your Father's house. Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
27 Then our Father said to Moses, "Write these words, for according to these words I made a covenant with you and with Israel."
28 Moses stayed there with our Father forty days and forty nights, eating no bread, drinking no water. He wrote the covenant's words—the Ten Words—on the tablets.
Moses Descends
29 As Moses came down Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, he didn't know his face shone from speaking with our Father. 30 Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses' face shone, and they feared to approach him. 31 Moses called them; Aaron and all leaders of the assembly returned, and Moses spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites approached, and he commanded them all our Father had told him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before our Father to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out; then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he was commanded. 35 The Israelites would see that Moses' face was radiant, and Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with our Father again.
