Read the Bible: Exodus 34

Moses goes up Mount Sinai for the 10 Commandment reboot. Spending time with God has an unexpected consequence: his face shines. He wears a veil when speaking to the children of Israel and removes the veil to meet with God again.

Exodus 34

The LORD said to Moses “Cut two tables of stone like the first: and I will write on these tables the words that were in the first tables, which you broke.

2 Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning onto Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.

3 And no man shall come up with you, nor let any man be seen throughout all the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain. 

4 And he cut two tables of stone like the first ones; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up onto Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

5 The LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the grandchildren, to the third and fourth generation.”

8 Moses hurried to bow his head toward the earth and worshiped.

9 And he said “Now if I have found grace in your sight, O LORD, please let my LORD go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.

10 And he said “Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people who you are among shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with you.

11 Observe what I command you this day: behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12 Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, or they will become a snare among you. 

13 But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their Asherim:

14 For you will worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

15 Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, and they prostitute themselves to their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods, and one calls you and you eat of his sacrifice;

16 Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, and their daughters prostitute themselves after their gods, and make your sons prostitute themselves after their gods.

17 Do not cast images of any gods in metal.

18 You must keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the month of Abib: for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.

19 All the firstborn are  mine; all your male livestock, whether ox or sheep.

20 But the first born of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb: and if you do not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty handed. 

21 Six days you may work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: even in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.

22 You shall observe the feast of weeks with the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

23 Three times each year shall all your males appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel.

24 For I will cast out the nations before you, and enlarge your territory: no one will covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times each year. 

25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left until the next morning.

26 The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. Do not boil a kid in his mother’s milk.

27 The LORD said to Moses “Write thou these words: for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink water. And the LORD wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in his hand, when he came down from the mount,  Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

30 When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and 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 he talked with them.

32 And afterward all the children of Israel came near: and he  commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.

33 Moses put a veil over his face until he had finished speaking with them.

34 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 children of Israel what he been commanded.

35 And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with the LORD.

Exodus 34 in the ESV, HCSB, NASB and NIV translations via Bible Gateway.

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