The Covenant Renewed

¹⁰ Then God said, “Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will do wondrous works (miracles) such as have not been created or produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live shall see the working of the Lord, for it is a fearful and awesome thing that I am going to do with you.

¹¹ “Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. ¹² Watch yourself so that you do not make a covenant (solemn agreement, treaty) with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a [dangerous] trap among you. ¹³ But you shall tear down and destroy their [pagan] altars, smash in pieces their [sacred] pillars (obelisks, images) and cut down their ^[a]Asherim ¹⁴ —for you shall not worship any other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His]— ¹⁵ otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the prostitute with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you ^[b]to eat his sacrifice (meal), ¹⁶ and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters would play the prostitute with their gods and cause your sons also to play the prostitute (commit apostasy) with their gods [that is, abandon the true God for man-made idols]. ¹⁷ You shall make for yourselves no molten gods.

¹⁸ “You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover). For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.

¹⁹ “All the firstborn males among your livestock belong to Me, whether cattle or sheep. ²⁰ You shall redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb; but if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. None of you are to appear before Me empty-handed.

²¹ “You shall work for six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; [even] in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest [on the Sabbath]. ²² You shall observe and celebrate the Feast of Weeks (Harvest, First Fruits, or Pentecost), the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering (Booths or Tabernacles) at the year’s end. ²³ Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord ^[c]God, the God of Israel. ²⁴ For I will drive out and dispossess nations before you and enlarge your borders; nor shall any man covet (actively seek for himself) your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times a year.

²⁵ “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover (Unleavened Bread) be left over until morning.

²⁶ “You shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of the Lord your God.

“You shall not ^[d]boil a young goat in his mother’s milk [as some pagans do].”

²⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” ²⁸ Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.