Passage: Exodus 33, 34 (RSV)


Exodus 33


1The LORD said to Moses, "Depart, go up hence, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, `To your descendants I will give it.'
2And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites.
3Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people."
4When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man put on his ornaments.
5For the LORD had said to Moses, "Say to the people of Israel, `You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what to do with you.'"
6Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
7Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; and he called it the tent of meeting. And every one who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.
8Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up, and every man stood at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he had gone into the tent.
9When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses.
10And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, every man at his tent door.
11Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent.
12Moses said to the LORD, "See, thou sayest to me, `Bring up this people'; but thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, `I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.'
13Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thy sight, show me now thy ways, that I may know thee and find favor in thy sight. Consider too that this nation is thy people."
14And he said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
15And he said to him, "If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here.
16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and thy people, from all other people that are upon the face of the earth?"
17And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name."
18Moses said, "I pray thee, show me thy glory."
19And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name `The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
20But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live."
21And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock;
22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by;
23then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

Exodus 34


1The LORD said to Moses, "Cut two tables of stone like the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which you broke.
2Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.
3No man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let no flocks or herds feed before that mountain."
4So Moses cut two tables of stone like the first; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone.
5And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
6The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."
8And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
9And he said, "If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance."
10And he said, "Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you are 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 will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites.
12Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you.
13You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their Ashe'rim
14(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
15lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one invites you, you eat of his sacrifice,
16and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.
17"You shall make for yourself no molten gods.
18"The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep. 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 from Egypt.
19All that opens the womb is mine, all your male cattle, the firstlings of cow and sheep.
20The firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the first-born of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
21"Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
22And you shall observe the feast of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
23Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel.
24For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the 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 morning.
26The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."
27And the LORD said to Moses, "Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
28And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
29When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.
30And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.
31But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.
32And afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.
33And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face;
34but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the people of Israel what he was commanded,
35the people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone; and Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.



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