The Tablets are Replaced
1 The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel two stone tablets like the first. I will write on the tablets, the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready by morning and come up to Mount Sinai in the morning and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.”
4 He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first. Then Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand two stone tablets.
5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed,
“The Lord, Yahweh, is a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and abundant in faithful love and truth,
7 keeping covenant loyalty a thousand fold,
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 on the children’s children
to the third and to the fourth generation.”
8 Moses hurried and bowed his head to the ground and worshiped. 9 He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though this is a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for your own possession.”
The Lord Renews the Covenant
10 He said, “I am making a covenant before all your people. I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.
11 Observe that which I am commanding you today. I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12 Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare among you, 13 but you shall destroy their altars and break their images, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles. 14 For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
15 Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one of them calls to you, and you eat of his sacrifice; 16 and you take among their daughters brides for your sons, and their daughters prostitute themselves with their gods and make your sons prostitute themselves with their gods.
17 You shall make for yourselves, no molten gods.
18 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 of Egypt.
19 All that opens the womb is mine, and every firstborn among your cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. 20 But the firstborn of a donkey, you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you do not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before me empty handed.
21 Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest, you shall rest.
22 You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest and the feast of harvest at the year’s end.
23 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders. Nor shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before the Lord, your God, three times a year.
25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The sacrifice of the feast of the Passover shall not be left to the morning.
26 You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27 The Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
28 He was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
The Radiant Face of Moses
29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been speaking with the Lord.
30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, because the skin of his face shone, they were afraid to come near him. 31 Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.
32 Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them all the commandments that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. 33 When Moses was done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
34 But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out, and he came out and spoke to the Israelites that which he was commanded. 35 The Israelites saw Moses’ face, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, so Moses put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with the Lord.