Exodus 34  Christian Standard Bible

New Stone Tablets

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.^{(A) 2} Be prepared by morning. Come up Mount Sinai in the morning and stand before me on the mountaintop. ³ No one may go up with you; in fact, no one should be seen anywhere on the mountain. Even the flocks and herds are not to graze in front of that mountain.”^(B)

⁴ Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. He got up early in the morning, and taking the two stone tablets in his hand, he climbed Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him.

⁵ The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed his name, “the Lord.” ⁶ The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:

The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth,^{(C) 7} maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.^(D) But he will not leave the guilty^(E) unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

⁸ Moses immediately knelt low on the ground and worshiped. ⁹ Then he said, “My Lord, if I have indeed found favor with you, my Lord, please go with us (even though this is a stiff-necked people), forgive our iniquity and our sin, and accept us as your own possession.”^(F)

Covenant Obligations

¹⁰ And the Lord responded, “Look, I am making a covenant. In the presence of all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done^[a] in the whole earth or in any nation. All the people you live among will see the Lord’s work, for what I am doing with you is awe-inspiring.^{(G) 11} Observe what I command you today. I am going to drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hethites, Perizzites, Hivites,^[b] and Jebusites. ¹² Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you are going to enter; otherwise, they will become a snare among you.^{(H) 13} Instead, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and chop down their Asherah poles.^{(I) 14} Because the Lord is jealous^(J) for his reputation, you are never to bow down to another god.^[c] He is a jealous God.

¹⁵ “Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, or else when they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.^{(K) 16} Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.^(L)

¹⁷ “Do not make cast images^(M) of gods for yourselves.

¹⁸ “Observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. You are to eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib,^[d] as I commanded you, for you came out of Egypt in the month of Abib.^(N)

¹⁹ “The firstborn^(O) male from every womb belongs to me, including all your male^[e][f] livestock, the firstborn of cattle or sheep. ²⁰ You may redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a sheep, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck.^(P) You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

²¹ “You are to labor six days but you must rest^(Q) on the seventh day; you must even rest during plowing and harvesting times.

²² “Observe the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering^[g] at the turn of the agricultural year. ²³ Three times a year^(R) all your males are to appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. ²⁴ For I will drive out nations^(S) before you and enlarge your territory.^(T) No one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the Lord your God.

²⁵ “Do not present^[h] the blood for my sacrifice with anything leavened. The sacrifice of the Passover Festival must not remain until morning.^(U)

²⁶ “Bring the best firstfruits^(V) of your land to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

²⁷ The Lord also said to Moses, “Write^(W) down these words, for I have made a covenant with you and with Israel based on these words.”

²⁸ Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat food or drink water. He wrote the Ten Commandments,^(X) the words of the covenant, on the tablets.

Moses’s Radiant Face

²⁹ As Moses descended from Mount Sinai—with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands as he descended the mountain—he did not realize that the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord.^{[i](Y) 30} When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone!^(Z) They were afraid to come near him. ³¹ But Moses called out to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. ³² Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he commanded them to do everything the Lord 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 before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. After he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded,^{(AA) 35} and the Israelites would see that Moses’s face^[j] was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went to speak with the Lord.