Exodus 23:20 – 24:18

Exodus 23

The Angel of the Lord Will Lead Israel

²⁰ Look, I will send an angel before you to guard you on your way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. ²¹ Pay attention to him. Listen to his voice. Do not provoke him, because he will not pardon your disobedience, for my Name is in him. ²² But if you carefully listen to his voice and carry out all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³ Yes, my Angel shall go ahead of you and bring you into the territory of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Then I will cut them off. ²⁴ You shall not bow down to their gods. Do not serve them or follow their practices, but you must completely overthrow them and demolish their sacred memorial stones. ²⁵ You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst. ²⁶ No one will miscarry or be childless ^[1] in your land. I will grant you the full number of your days.

²⁷ I will send my terror before you, and I will spread confusion among all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs and flee from you. ²⁸ I will send the hornet ahead of you. It will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from your presence. ²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate, and the wild animals would become too numerous for you. ³⁰ As you advance, I will drive them out little by little, until you have grown in number and taken possession of the land.

³¹ I will establish your border from the Red Sea ^[2] all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, ^[3] and from the Wilderness ^[4] to the River. ^[5] So I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. ³² You shall not make a treaty ^[6] with them or with their gods. ³³ They are not to dwell in your land, or they will make you sin against me, because if you serve their gods, this will surely be a trap for you.

The Covenant Is Ratified

Exodus 24

¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, along with Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship me from a distance. ² Only Moses is allowed to come near the Lord, but the others are not to come near, and the people are not to go up with him.”

³ Moses came and reported to 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 spoken we will do.” ⁴ Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.

He got up early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He set up twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ He sent young Israelite men, who offered whole burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings of cattle to the Lord. ⁶ Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and he splashed half of the blood on the altar. ⁷ He took the Book of the Covenant and read it out loud to the people and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do. We will obey.”

⁸ Moses took the blood and splashed it on the people. He said, “Look, here is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord made with you by means of all these words.”

⁹ Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. ¹⁰ They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet they saw what looked like a pavement of sapphire ^[7] as clear as the sky. ¹¹ The Lord did not lay his hand on the dignitaries of the people of Israel. They gazed at God, and they ate and drank.

¹² The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, so that you can teach them.”

¹³ Moses set out with his assistant Joshua and went up onto the mountain of God. ¹⁴ He said to the elders, “Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Look, here are Aaron and Hur. They will be with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them.”

¹⁵ Moses went up onto the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶ The Glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. ¹⁷ The appearance of the Glory of the Lord looked like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. ¹⁸ Moses entered into the middle of the cloud and climbed up the mountain. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.