Exodus 24

Modern English Version

The Covenant Confirmed

24 Then He said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship from a distance. ² Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, nor may the people go up with him.”

³ Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” ⁴ Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ He sent young Israelite men who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of young bulls to the Lord. ⁶ Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷ He took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do, and we will be obedient.”

⁸ So Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Moses on Mount Sinai

⁹ Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, ¹⁰ and they saw the God of Israel, and under His feet there was something like a paved work of sapphire stone as clear as the sky itself. ¹¹ He did not lay His hand upon the nobles of the children of Israel. Also they saw God, and they ate and they drank.

¹² The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me to the mountain and stay there, and I will give you the stone tablets with law and the commandments which I have written, so that you may teach them.”

¹³ Moses rose up with Joshua his attendant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. ¹⁴ He said to the elders, “Wait for us in this place until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has any matters of dispute let him come to them.”

¹⁵ Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶ The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷ Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain to the eyes of the children of Israel. ¹⁸ Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up to the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.