¹² The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone^(A) with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

²² These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness;^(A) and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets^(B) and gave them to me.

¹⁵ Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law^(A) in his hands.^(B) They were inscribed^(C) on both sides, front and back. ¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.^(D)

¹⁸ When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai,^(A) he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone^(B) inscribed by the finger of God.^(C)

³ You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,^(A) not on tablets of stone^(B) but on tablets of human hearts.^(C)

⁴ which had the golden altar of incense^(A) and the gold-covered ark of the covenant.^(B) This ark contained the gold jar of manna,^(C) Aaron’s staff that had budded,^(D) and the stone tablets of the covenant.^(E)

The Greater Glory of the New Covenant

⁷ Now if the ministry that brought death,^(A) which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory,^(B) transitory though it was,

¹⁴ And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws^(A) you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.