World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 34
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said to , "Chisel two stone tablets like the first. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to , and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain. Do not let the flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain." 4He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; then rose up early in the morning, and went up to , as had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets. descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed name. passed by before him, and proclaimed, "! , a merciful and , , and abundant in and truth, keeping for thousands, forgiving and and ; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the of the fathers on the children, and on the children's children, on the third and on the fourth generation." hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and . He said, "If now I have in your sight, , please let go among us, even though this is a people; pardon our and our , and take us for your ." He said, "Behold, I make a : before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of ; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you. Observe that which I command you today. Behold, I will drive out before you the , the , the , the , the , and the . Be careful, lest you make a with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among you; but you shall break down their , and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their ; for you shall no other ; for , whose name is , is . "Don't make a with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the after their gods, and to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his ; and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the after their gods, and make your sons play the after their gods. "You shall make no cast idols for yourselves. "You shall keep the feast of . Seven days you shall eat , as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month ; for in the month you came out of . "All that opens the is mine; and all your livestock that is male, of cow and sheep. You shall of a donkey with . If you will not it, then you shall break its neck. You shall all of your sons. No one shall appear before me empty. "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. "You shall observe the with the of wheat harvest, and the at the year's end. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before , the of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man your land when you go up to appear before , your , three times in the year. "You shall not offer of my with leavened bread. The of the feast of shall not be left to the morning. "You shall bring the first of the of your ground to the your . "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk." said to , "Write these words; for in accordance with these words I have made a with you and with Israel." He was there with forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of , . When came down from with the two tablets of in ' hand, when he came down from the mountain, didn't know that the skin of shone by reason of his speaking with him. When and all the saw , behold, the skin of shone; and they were afraid to come near him. called to them, and and all the of returned to him; and spoke to them. Afterward all the came near, and he gave them all that had spoken with him on . When was done speaking with them, he put a on . But when went in before to speak with him, he took off, until he came out; and he came out, and spoke to the that which he was commanded. The saw ' , that the skin of ' shone; so put on again, until he went in to speak with him.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.