Tanakh & Talmud. Various Authors

Lord, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin.' ³¹And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said: 'Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them a god of gold. ³²Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.' ³³And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. ³⁴And now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee; behold, Mine angel shall go before thee; nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.' ³⁵And the Lord smote the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.

      33And the Lord spoke unto Moses: 'Depart, go up hence, thou and the people that thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land of which I swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying: Unto thy seed will I give it— ²and I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite— ³unto a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people; lest I consume thee in the way.' ⁴And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man did put on him his ornaments. ⁵And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Say unto the children of Israel: Ye are a stiffnecked people; if I go up into the midst of thee for one moment, I shall consume thee; therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.' ⁶And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from mount Horeb onward.

      ⁷Now Moses used to take the tent and to pitch it without the camp, afar off from the camp; and he called it The tent of meeting. And it came to pass, that every one that sought the Lord went out unto the tent of meeting, which was without the camp. ⁸And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the Tent, that all the people rose up, and stood, every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the Tent. ⁹And it came to pass, when Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, and stood at the door of the Tent; and [the Lord] spoke with Moses. ¹⁰And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, all the people rose up and worshipped, every man at his tent door. ¹¹And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he would return into the camp; but his minister Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the Tent.

      ¹²And Moses said unto the Lord: 'See, Thou sayest unto me: Bring up this people; and Thou hast not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me. Yet Thou hast said: I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in My sight. ¹³Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy ways, that I may know Thee, to the end that I may find grace in Thy sight; and consider that this nation is Thy people.' ¹⁴And He said: 'My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.' ¹⁵And he said unto Him: 'If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. ¹⁶For wherein now shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight, I and Thy people? is it not in that Thou goest with us, so that we are distinguished, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth?'

      ¹⁷And the Lord said unto Moses: 'I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in My sight, and I know thee by name.' ¹⁸And he said: 'Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory.' ¹⁹And He said: 'I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.' ²⁰And He said: 'Thou canst not see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.' ²¹And the Lord said: 'Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock. ²²And it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with My hand until I have passed by. ²³And I will take away My hand, and thou shalt see My back; but My face shall not be seen.'

      34And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou didst break. ²And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to Me on the top of the mount. ³And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.' ⁴And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto 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. ⁶And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed: 'The Lord, the Lord, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; ⁷keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, 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 children's children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation.' ⁸And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. ⁹And he said: 'If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray Thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Thine inheritance.' ¹⁰And He said: 'Behold, I make a covenant; before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord that I am about to do with thee, that it is tremendous. ¹¹Observe thou that which I am commanding thee this day; behold, I am driving out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. ¹²Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest they be for a snare in the midst of thee. ¹³But ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim. ¹⁴For thou shalt bow down to no other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God; ¹⁵lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go astray after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and they call thee, and thou eat of their sacrifice; ¹⁶and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go astray after their gods, and make thy sons go astray after their gods. ¹⁷Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. ¹⁸The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt. ¹⁹All that openeth the womb is Mine; and of all thy cattle thou shalt sanctify the males, the firstlings of ox and sheep. ²⁰And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before Me empty. ²¹Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. ²²And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the turn of the year. ²³Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. ²⁴For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders; neither shall any man covet thy land, when thou goest up to appear before the Lord thy God three times in the year. ²⁵Thou shalt not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. ²⁶The choicest first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.'

²⁷And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.' ²⁸And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words. ²⁹And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face sent forth ¹⁵beams while He talked with him. ³⁰And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face sent forth beams; and they were afraid to come nigh him. ³¹And Moses called unto them; and Aaron