Then Moses was told, Do thou and Aaron and Nadab and Abiu, with seventy elders of Israel, come up to meet the Lord, and worship from afar.

Only Moses must enter the Lord’s presence, the rest are not to draw near, and none of the people are to come up with him.

So Moses went and told the people all the Lord had said, all the commands he had given; and the whole people answered with one voice, We will do all that the Lord has bidden us.

Then Moses committed everything the Lord had said to writing; and when he rose next morning, he built an altar close to the spurs of the mountain, and twelve memorial stones answering to the twelve tribes of Israel.

And he directed some of the younger Israelites to make burnt-sacrifice there and bring welcome-offerings to the Lord, with bullocks for their victims.

After this Moses took half of the blood, and set it aside in bowls; the other half he poured out on the altar.

Then he took up the book in which the covenant was inscribed, and read it aloud to the people. We will do all the Lord has bidden us, said they; we promise obedience;

and Moses took the blood and sprinkled it over the people, crying out, Here is the blood of the covenant which the Lord makes with you, in accordance with all these words of his.✻

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abiu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up the mountain,

and had a vision of the God of Israel, with a pavement about his feet that might have been made of sapphire, bright as the fashioning of the heavens.

There they stood, far removed from the rest of Israel, and the hand of the Lord never smote them down; they had sight of him, and lived to eat and drink like mortal men.✻

And the Lord said to Moses, Come up to the mountain and abide with me there; I have still to give thee tablets of stone on which I have written down the law and the commandments thou art to teach them.

At that, Moses rose up, and his servant Josue with him; and Moses, as he began climbing God’s mountain,

said to the elders, Wait here till we come back to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you; to them refer all matters of dispute.

When Moses had gone, the mountain was veiled in cloud;

for six days the glory of the Lord abode there on Sinai, wrapping it in cloud, and on the seventh day, from the heart of that darkness, the Lord called to him.

To the Israelites, as they looked upon it, this glory of the Lord wore the semblance of a fire, burning there on the summit of the mountain.

So Moses climbed higher up the mountain, into the heart of the cloud; for forty days and forty nights the mountain was his home.