Exodus 34

¹ Yahweh said to Moses, 'Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones and come up to me on themountain, and I wil write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

² Be ready at dawn; at dawn come up Mount Sinai and wait for me there at the top of the mountain.

³ No one may come up with you, no one may be seen anywhere on the mountain; the flocks and herdsmay not even graze in front of this mountain.'

⁴ So he cut two tablets of stone like the first and, with the two tablets of stone in his hands, Moses wentup Mount Sinai in the early morning as Yahweh had ordered.

⁵ And Yahweh descended in a cloud and stood with him there and pronounced the name Yahweh.

⁶ Then Yahweh passed before him and cal ed out, 'Yahweh, Yahweh, God of tenderness andcompassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love and constancy,

⁷ maintaining his faithful love to thousands, forgiving fault, crime and sin, yet letting nothing gounchecked, and punishing the parent's fault in the children and in the grandchildren to the third and fourthgeneration!'

⁸ Moses immediately bowed to the ground in worship,

⁹ then he said, 'If indeed I do enjoy your favour, please, my Lord, come with us, although they are anobstinate people; and forgive our faults and sins, and adopt us as your heritage.'

¹⁰ He then said, 'Look, I am now making a covenant: I shal work such wonders at the head of yourwhole people as have never been worked in any other country or nation, and all the people round you wil seewhat Yahweh can do, for what I shal do through you wil be awe-inspiring.

¹¹ Mark, then, what I command you today. I am going to drive out the Amorites, the Canaanites, theHittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites before you.

¹² Take care you make no pact with the inhabitants of the country which you are about to enter, or theywil prove a snare in your community.

¹³ You wil tear down their altars, smash their cultic stones and cut down their sacred poles,

¹⁴ for you wil worship no other god, since Yahweh's name is the Jealous One; he is a jealous God.

¹⁵ Make no pact with the inhabitants of the country or, when they prostitute themselves to their owngods and sacrifice to them, they wil invite you and you wil partake of their sacrifice,

¹⁶ and then you wil choose wives for your sons from among their daughters, and their daughters,prostituting themselves to their own gods, wil induce your sons to prostitute themselves to their gods.

¹⁷ 'You wil not cast metal gods for yourself.

¹⁸ 'You wil observe the feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you wil eat unleavened bread, as Ihave commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out ofEgypt.

¹⁹ 'Al that first issues from the womb belongs to me: every male, every first-born of flock or herd.

²⁰ But the first-born donkey you wil redeem with an animal from the flock; if you do not redeem it, youmust break its neck. Al the first-born of your sons you will redeem, and no one wil appear before me empty-handed.

²¹ 'For six days you wil labour, but on the seventh day you wil rest; you wil stop work even duringploughing and harvesting.

²² 'You wil observe the feast of Weeks, of the first-fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast ofIngathering at the close of the year.

²³ 'Three times a year al your menfolk wil appear before Lord Yahweh, God of Israel,

²⁴ for I shal dispossess the nations before you and extend your frontiers, and no one wil set his hearton your territory when you go away to appear before Yahweh your God three times a year.

²⁵ 'You wil not offer the blood of my sacrificial victim with leavened bread, nor is the victim offered atthe feast of Passover to be left until the fol owing day.

²⁶ 'You wil bring the best of the first-fruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God. 'You wil notboil a kid in its mother's milk.'

²⁷ Yahweh then said to Moses, 'Put these words in writing, for they are the terms of the covenant whichI have made with you and with Israel.'

²⁸ He stayed there with Yahweh for forty days and forty nights, eating and drinking nothing, and on thetablets he wrote the words of the covenant -- the Ten Words.

²⁹ When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, as hewas coming down the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face was radiant because he had beentalking to him.

³⁰ And when Aaron and al the Israelites saw Moses, the skin on his face was so radiant that they wereafraid to go near him.

³¹ But Moses called to them, and Aaron and al the leaders of the community rejoined him, and Mosestalked to them,

³² after which al the Israelites came closer, and he passed on to them al the orders that Yahweh hadgiven to him on Mount Sinai.

³³ Once Moses had finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.

³⁴ Whenever Moses went into Yahweh's presence to speak with him, he took the veil off until he cameout. And when he came out, he would tel the Israelites what orders he had been given,

³⁵ and the Israelites would see Moses' face radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his faceuntil he went in to speak to him next time.