The Covenant Is Sealed

¹The Lord said to Moses, “Come up the mountain to me, you and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel; and while you are still some distance away, bow down in worship.

²You alone, and none of the others, are to come near me. The people are not even to come up the mountain.”

³Moses went and told the people all the Lord's commands and all the ordinances, and all the people answered together, “We will do everything that the Lord has said.”

⁴Moses wrote down all the Lord's commands. Early the next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

⁵Then he sent young men, and they burned sacrifices to the Lord and sacrificed some cattle as fellowship offerings.

⁶Moses took half of the blood of the animals and put it in bowls; and the other half he threw against the altar.

⁷Then he took the book of the Covenant, in which the Lord's commands were written, and read it aloud to the people. They said, “We will obey the Lord and do everything that he has commanded.”

⁸Then Moses took the blood in the bowls and threw it on the people. He said, “This is the blood that seals the covenant which the Lord made with you when he gave all these commands.”

⁹Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel went up the mountain

¹⁰and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was what looked like a pavement of sapphire, as blue as the sky.

¹¹God did not harm these leading men of Israel; they saw God, and then they ate and drank together.

Moses on Mount Sinai

¹²The Lord said to Moses, “Come up the mountain to me, and while you are here, I will give you two stone tablets which contain all the laws that I have written for the instruction of the people.”

¹³Moses and his helper Joshua got ready, and Moses began to go up the holy mountain.

¹⁴Moses said to the leaders, “Wait here in the camp for us until we come back. Aaron and Hur are here with you; and so whoever has a dispute to settle can go to them.”

¹⁵Moses went up Mount Sinai, and a cloud covered it.

^16-17The dazzling light of the Lord's presence came down on the mountain. To the Israelites the light looked like a fire burning on top of the mountain. The cloud covered the mountain for six days, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud.

¹⁸Moses went on up the mountain into the cloud. There he stayed for forty days and nights.

The Sacredness of Blood

¹The Lord commanded Moses

²to give Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel the following regulations.

^3-4Any Israelites who kill a cow or a sheep or a goat as an offering to the Lord anywhere except at the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence have broken the Law. They have shed blood and shall no longer be considered God's people.

⁵The meaning of this command is that the people of Israel shall now bring to the Lord the animals which they used to kill in the open country. They shall now bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Tent and kill them as fellowship offerings.

⁶The priest shall throw the blood against the sides of the altar at the entrance of the Tent and burn the fat to produce an odor that is pleasing to the Lord.

⁷The people of Israel must no longer be unfaithful to the Lord by killing their animals in the fields as sacrifices to the goat demons. The people of Israel must keep this regulation for all time to come.

⁸Any Israelites or any foreigners living in the community who offer a burnt offering or any other sacrifice

⁹as an offering to the Lord anywhere except at the entrance of the Tent shall no longer be considered God's people.

¹⁰If any Israelites or any foreigners living in the community eat meat with blood still in it, the Lord will turn against them and no longer consider them his people.

¹¹The life of every living thing is in the blood, and that is why the Lord has commanded that all blood be poured out on the altar to take away the people's sins. Blood, which is life, takes away sins.

¹²That is why the Lord has told the people of Israel that neither they nor any foreigner living among them shall eat any meat with blood still in it.

¹³If any Israelites or any foreigners living in the community catch an animal or a bird which is ritually clean, they must pour its blood out on the ground and cover it with dirt.

¹⁴The life of every living thing is in the blood, and that is why the Lord has told the people of Israel that they shall not eat any meat with blood still in it and that anyone who does so will no longer be considered one of his people.

¹⁵Any people, Israelites or foreigners, who eat meat from an animal that has died a natural death or has been killed by wild animals must wash their clothes, take a bath, and wait until evening before they are ritually clean.

¹⁶If they do not, they must suffer the consequences.

Forbidden Sexual Practices

¹The Lord told Moses

²to say to the people of Israel, “I am the Lord your God.

³Do not follow the practices of the people of Egypt, where you once lived, or of the people in the land of Canaan, where I am now taking you.

⁴Obey my laws and do what I command. I am the Lord your God.

⁵Follow the practices and the laws that I give you; you will save your life by doing so. I am the Lord.”

⁶The Lord gave the following regulations. Do not have sexual intercourse with any of your relatives.

⁷Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. You must not disgrace your own mother.

⁸Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with any of his other wives.

⁹Do not have intercourse with your sister or your stepsister, whether or not she was brought up in the same house with you.

¹⁰Do not have intercourse with your granddaughter; that would be a disgrace to you.

¹¹Do not have intercourse with a half sister; she, too, is your sister.

^12-13Do not have intercourse with an aunt, whether she is your father's sister or your mother's sister.

¹⁴Do not have intercourse with your uncle's wife; she, too, is your aunt.

¹⁵Do not have intercourse with your daughter-in-law

¹⁶or with your brother's wife.

¹⁷Do not have intercourse with the daughter or granddaughter of a woman with whom you have had intercourse; they may be related to you, and that would be incest.

¹⁸Do not take your wife's sister as one of your wives, as long as your wife is living.

¹⁹Do not have intercourse with a woman during her monthly period, because she is ritually unclean.

²⁰Do not have intercourse with another man's wife; that would make you ritually unclean.

²¹Do not hand over any of your children to be used in the worship of the god Molech, because that would bring disgrace on the name of God, the Lord.

²²No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates that.

²³No man or woman is to have sexual relations with an animal; that perversion makes you ritually unclean.

²⁴Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these acts, for that is how the pagans made themselves unclean, those pagans who lived in the land before you and whom the Lord is driving out so that you can go in.

²⁵Their actions made the land unclean, and so the Lord is punishing the land and making it reject the people who lived there.

^26-27They did all these disgusting things and made the land unclean, but you must not do them. All of you, whether Israelites or foreigners living with you, must keep the Lord's laws and commands,

²⁸and then the land will not reject you, as it rejected the pagans who lived there before you.

²⁹You know that whoever does any of these disgusting things will no longer be considered one of God's people.

³⁰And the Lord said, “Obey the commands I give and do not follow the practices of the people who lived in the land before you, and do not make yourselves unclean by doing any of these things. I am the Lord your God.”

God and His People

¹Listen, my people, to my teaching, and pay attention to what I say.

²I am going to use wise sayings and explain mysteries from the past,

³things we have heard and known, things that our ancestors told us.

⁴We will not keep them from our children; we will tell the next generation about the Lord's power and his great deeds and the wonderful things he has done.

⁵He gave laws to the people of Israel and commandments to the descendants of Jacob. He instructed our ancestors to teach his laws to their children,

⁶so that the next generation might learn them and in turn should tell their children.

⁷In this way they also will put their trust in God and not forget what he has done, but always obey his commandments.

⁸They will not be like their ancestors, a rebellious and disobedient people, whose trust in God was never firm and who did not remain faithful to him.

⁹The Ephraimites, armed with bows and arrows, ran away on the day of battle.

¹⁰They did not keep their covenant with God; they refused to obey his law.

¹¹They forgot what he had done, the miracles they had seen him perform.

¹²While their ancestors watched, God performed miracles in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.

¹³He divided the sea and took them through it; he made the waters stand like walls.

¹⁴By day he led them with a cloud and all night long with the light of a fire.

¹⁵He split rocks open in the desert and gave them water from the depths.

¹⁶He caused a stream to come out of the rock and made water flow like a river.

¹⁷But they continued to sin against God, and in the desert they rebelled against the Most High.

¹⁸They deliberately put God to the test by demanding the food they wanted.

¹⁹They spoke against God and said, “Can God supply food in the desert?

²⁰It is true that he struck the rock, and water flowed out in a torrent; but can he also provide us with bread and give his people meat?”

²¹And so the Lord was angry when he heard them; he attacked his people with fire, and his anger against them grew,

²²because they had no faith in him and did not believe that he would save them.

²³But he spoke to the sky above and commanded its doors to open;

²⁴he gave them grain from heaven, by sending down manna for them to eat.

²⁵So they ate the food of angels, and God gave them all they wanted.

²⁶He also caused the east wind to blow, and by his power he stirred up the south wind;

²⁷and to his people he sent down birds, as many as the grains of sand on the shore;

²⁸they fell in the middle of the camp all around the tents.

²⁹So the people ate and were satisfied; God gave them what they wanted.

³⁰But they had not yet satisfied their craving and were still eating,

³¹when God became angry with them and killed their strongest men, the best young men of Israel.

³²In spite of all this the people kept sinning; in spite of his miracles they did not trust him.

³³So he ended their days like a breath and their lives with sudden disaster.

³⁴Whenever he killed some of them, the rest would turn to him; they would repent and pray earnestly to him.

³⁵They remembered that God was their protector, that the Almighty came to their aid.

³⁶But their words were all lies; nothing they said was sincere.

³⁷They were not loyal to him; they were not faithful to their covenant with him.

³⁸But God was merciful to his people. He forgave their sin and did not destroy them. Many times he held back his anger and restrained his fury.

³⁹He remembered that they were only mortal beings, like a wind that blows by and is gone.

⁴⁰How often they rebelled against him in the desert; how many times they made him sad!

⁴¹Again and again they put God to the test and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.

⁴²They forgot his great power and the day when he saved them from their enemies

⁴³and performed his mighty acts and miracles in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.

⁴⁴He turned the rivers into blood, and the Egyptians had no water to drink.

⁴⁵He sent flies among them, that tormented them, and frogs that ruined their land.

⁴⁶He sent locusts to eat their crops and to destroy their fields.

⁴⁷He killed their grapevines with hail and their fig trees with frost.

⁴⁸He killed their cattle with hail and their flocks with lightning.

⁴⁹He caused them great distress by pouring out his anger and fierce rage, which came as messengers of death.

⁵⁰He did not restrain his anger or spare their lives, but killed them with a plague.

⁵¹He killed the first-born sons of all the families of Egypt.

⁵²Then he led his people out like a shepherd and guided them through the desert.

⁵³He led them safely, and they were not afraid; but the sea came rolling over their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to his holy land, to the mountains which he himself conquered.

⁵⁵He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced; he divided their land among the tribes of Israel and gave their homes to his people.

⁵⁶But they rebelled against Almighty God and put him to the test. They did not obey his commandments,

⁵⁷but were rebellious and disloyal like their ancestors, unreliable as a crooked arrow.

⁵⁸They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious.

⁵⁹God was angry when he saw it, so he rejected his people completely.

⁶⁰He abandoned his tent in Shiloh, the home where he had lived among us.

⁶¹He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory.

⁶²He was angry with his own people and let them be killed by their enemies.

⁶³Young men were killed in war, and young women had no one to marry.

⁶⁴Priests died by violence, and their widows were not allowed to mourn.

⁶⁵At last the Lord woke up as though from sleep; he was like a strong man excited by wine.

⁶⁶He drove his enemies back in lasting and shameful defeat.

⁶⁷But he rejected the descendants of Joseph; he did not select the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸Instead he chose the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he dearly loves.

⁶⁹There he built his Temple like his home in heaven; he made it firm like the earth itself, secure for all time.

⁷⁰He chose his servant David; he took him from the pastures,

⁷¹where he looked after his flocks, and he made him king of Israel, the shepherd of the people of God.

⁷²David took care of them with unselfish devotion and led them with skill.