CHAPTER 34

Stone Tablets Like the Former Ones

1 Now Yahweh said to Moses, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered.
2 “So be prepared by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain.
3 “And no man is to come up with you, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain.”
4 So he carved out two stone tablets like the former ones, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and he took two stone tablets in his hand.
5 Then Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood there with him, and He called upon the name of Yahweh.
6 Then Yahweh passed by in front of him and called out, “Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
8 And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.
9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though they are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your own inheritance.”

Yahweh Cuts a Covenant with Israel

10 Then God said, “Behold, I am going to cut a covenant. Before all your people I will do wondrous deeds which have not been created in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of Yahweh, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to do with you.
11 “Be sure to keep what I am commanding you this day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12 “Beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest it become a snare in your midst.
13 “But rather, you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim
14 —for you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God—
15 lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you to eat of his sacrifice,
16 and you take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.
17 “You shall make for yourself no molten gods.
18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, which I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.
19 “The first offspring from every womb belongs to Me, even of all your male livestock, the first offspring from cattle and sheep.
20 “And you shall redeem with a lamb the first offspring from a donkey; and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. None shall appear before Me empty-handed.
21 “You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest.
22 “And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
23 “Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel.
24 “For I will dispossess nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before Yahweh your God.
25 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, and the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover shall not be left over until morning.
26 “You shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of Yahweh your God.
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have cut a covenant with you and with Israel.”
28 So he was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

The Shining Face of Moses

29 Now it happened when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.
30 Then Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers in the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them.
32 And afterward all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them everything that Yahweh had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.
33 Then Moses finished speaking with them and put a veil over his face.
34 But whenever Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with Him, he would take off the veil until he came out; and then he would come out and speak to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded,
35 and the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone. So Moses would return the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him.