Exodus Chapter 34
The New Stone Tablets
1 Yahveh told Moses,
“Carve out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I’ll write on them what was on the tablets you shattered. 2 Be ready by morning. Come up to the top of Mount Sinai and present yourself 3 alone. Nobody can be on the mountain. Flocks and herds can’t graze by it.”
4 He carved two stone tablets like the first ones, got up early, and took them up to Mount Sinai. 5 Yahveh came down in a cloud and stood there with him as he called on Yahveh. 6 He passed by Moses and proclaimed,
“Yahveh, Yahveh God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness; 7who shows kindness to thousands; forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet doesn’t leave guilty people unpunished and visits the consequences of parents’ sins on their descendants for three or four generations!”
8 Moses immediately bowed to the ground in worship.
9 “If I’m pleasing to you, Yahveh, go along with us, even though we’ve been so stubborn. Pardon our sin and take us as your own.”
Ex 34:1-9
10 God said,
“I’ll make a covenant. I’ll perform miracles for the people that haven’t been done in any nation. The people you live with will see myY working; it’ll be terrifying. 11 Be sure to observe what I’m commanding you today; and I’ll drive out the Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite in front of you.
12 “Don’t make any treaty with the people where you’re going. That would be a snare among you. 13 Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles. 14 (Don’t worship any other god, because IY am an “exclusive” God. Exclusive is my name.) 15 Destroy those things so you won’t be making treaties with them, carrying on prostitution with their gods, sacrificing to them, eating their sacrifices with them— 16 so you won’t be taking their daughters for your sons, and their daughters carry on prostitution with their gods and get your sons to do it.
17 “Don’t make molten gods.”
Ex 34:10-17
18 “Observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For a week at the specified time in the month Abib, eat bread without yeast like I told you. That’s the month you came out of Egypt.
19 “The first male offspring belongs to me, including the first male offspring of your cattle and sheep. 20 With a lamb, redeem the first offspring of a donkey. If you don’t redeem it, break its neck. Redeem firstborn sons. None of them are to appear in front me empty-handed.”
Ex 34:18-20
21 “Work six days, but rest on the seventh, even during plowing time and harvest.
22 “At year’s end celebrate the Festival of Weeks, that is, the first part of the wheat harvest, the Festival of Ingathering.
23 “Three times a year, males are to appear in myY presence. 24 I’ll drive out nations in front of you and enlarge your territory. Nobody is to covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear in myY presence.
25 “Don’t offer the blood of my sacrifice with bread containing yeast or leave the Passover sacrifice over till morning.
26 “Bring the first of your ground’s produce to my house.
“Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
27 “Write those things down; with them I’m making a covenant with you and Israel.”
28 Moses was there with Yahveh for 40 days and didn’t eat bread or drink water. Yahveh wrote the terms of the covenant on the tablets: The Ten Commandments.
Ex 34:21-28
The Glowing Face of Moses
29 When Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (with the tablets in hand), he didn’t realize his face was glowing because he’d been speaking with Yahveh. 30 When Aaron and the Israelites saw his face glowing, they were afraid to get close to him. 31 He called out to them, and Aaron and the rulers in the community came back to him. 32 He told them to do everything Yahveh had told him on Mount Sinai. 33 When he finished talking, he put on a veil. 34 Whenever he went to speak to Yahveh, he’d take it off till he came out to report what Yahveh had said. 35 The people would see his face glowing, and he’d put the veil back on till he went in to speak to Yahveh again.
Ex 34:29-35