Exodus 24

¹ To Moses he had said, ‘Come up to Yahweh, yourself and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel and bow down in worship at a distance.

² Moses alone must approach Yahweh; the others must not, nor must the people go up with him.’

³ Moses went and told the people all the commands of Yahweh and all the ordinances. In answer, all the people said with one voice, ‘We will observe all the commands that Yahweh has decreed’.

⁴ Moses put all the commands of Yahweh into writing, and early next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve standing-stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.

⁵ Then he directed certain young Israelites to offer holocausts and to immolate bullocks to Yahweh as communion sacrifices.

⁶ Half of the blood Moses took up and put into basins, the other half he cast on the altar.

⁷ And taking the Book of the Covenant he read it to the listening people, and they said, ‘We will observe all that Yahweh has decreed; we will obey.’

⁸ Then Moses took the blood and cast it towards the people. ‘This’ he said ‘is the blood of the Covenant that Yahweh has made with you, containing all these rules.’

⁹ Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel.

¹⁰ They saw the God of Israel beneath whose feet there was, it seemed, a sapphire pavement pure as the heavens themselves.

¹¹ He laid no hand on these notables of the sons of Israel: they gazed on God. They ate and they drank.

¹² Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain and stay there while I give you the stone tablets – the law and the commandments – that I have written for their instruction’.

¹³ Accordingly Moses rose, he and his servant Joshua, and they went up the mountain of God.

¹⁴ To the elders he had said, ‘Wait here for us until we come back to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you; if anyone has a difference to settle, let him go to them.’

¹⁵ And Moses went up the mountain. The cloud covered the mountain,

¹⁶ and the glory of Yahweh settled on the mountain of Sinai; for six days the cloud covered it, and on the seventh day Yahweh called to Moses from inside the cloud.

¹⁷ To the eyes of the sons of Israel the glory of Yahweh seemed like a devouring fire on the mountain top.

¹⁸ Moses went right into the cloud. He went up the mountain, and stayed there for forty days and forty nights.