Exodus 23:14-25:40

Tree of Life Version

Three Harvest Festivals

¹⁴ “Three times in the year you are to ce-lebrate a festival for Me. ¹⁵ You are to observe the Feast of Matzot.^[a] For seven days you will eat matzot as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Aviv, for that is when you came out from Egypt. No one is to appear before Me empty-handed. ¹⁶ Also you are to observe the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors that you sow in the field, as well as the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your crops from the field. ¹⁷ Three times in the year all your men are to appear before Adonai Elohim.

¹⁸ “Do not offer the blood of My sacrifice with hametz. Nor is the fat of My feast to remain out all night until the morning. ¹⁹ Bring the choicest firstfruits of your land into the House of Adonai your God.

“Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

²⁰ “Behold, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. ²¹ Watch for Him and listen to His voice. Do not rebel against Him because He will not pardon your transgression, for My Name is in Him. ²² But if you listen closely to His voice, and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. ²³ For My angel will go before you, and bring you to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off. ²⁴ You are not to bow down to their gods or serve them, or do what they do. Rather, you are to utterly overthrow them, and break their pillars in pieces. ²⁵ You are to serve Adonai your God, and He will bless your food and your water. Moreover I will take sickness away from your midst. ²⁶ None will miscarry nor be barren in your land, and I will fill up the number of your days.

²⁷ “I will send My terror before you and throw all the people to whom you will come into panic, and make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸ I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites, from before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in a single year. Otherwise the land would become desolate, and the animals of the field will multiply against you. ³⁰ But little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you are fruitful. Then you will possess the land.

³¹ “I will set your border from the Sea of Reeds to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you are to drive them out before you. ³² Make no covenant with them or with their gods. ³³ They must not dwell in your land and cause you to sin against Me, for if you worship their gods, they will be a snare to you.”

Cutting the Covenant at Sinai

24 Then to Moses He said, “Come up to Adonai, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, and worship from afar. ² Moses alone is to approach Adonai, but the others may not draw near, nor are the people to go up with him.”

³ So Moses came and told the people all the words of Adonai as well as all the ordinances. All the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which Adonai has spoken, we will do.”

⁴ So Moses wrote down all the words of Adonai, then rose up early in the morning, and built an altar below the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ He then sent out young men of Bnei-Yisrael, who sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings of oxen to Adonai. ⁶ Then Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins and the other half he poured out against the altar. ⁷ He took the Scroll of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. Again they said, “All that Adonai has spoken, we will do and obey.”

⁸ Then Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which Adonai has cut with you, in agreement with all these words.”^[b]

⁹ Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. ¹⁰ They saw the God of Israel, and under His feet was something like a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the very heavens. ^{[c] 11} Yet He did not raise His hand against the nobles of Bnei-Yisrael. So they beheld God, and ate and drank.

¹² Then Adonai said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay there, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the Torah and the mitzvot, which I have written so that you may instruct them.”

¹³ So Moses rose up along with his attendant Joshua, and Moses went up onto the mountain of God. ¹⁴ To the elders he said, “Wait for us here until we come back to you. See, Aaron and Hur are with you—whoever has a dispute should go to them.”

¹⁵ When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it. ¹⁶ The glory of Adonai settled upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. Then on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷ The appearance of the glory of Adonai was like a consuming fire^[d] on the top of the mountain in the sight of Bnei-Yisrael. ¹⁸ So Moses entered into the midst of the cloud and went up onto the mountain. Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

Parashat Terumah

Tabernacle: Ark, Table, Menorah

25 Adonai spoke to Moses saying, ² “Tell Bnei-Yisrael to take up an offering for Me. From anyone whose heart compels him you are to take My offering. ³ These are the contributions which you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze; ⁴ blue, purple and scarlet cloth; fine linen and goat hair; ⁵ ram skins dyed red, sealskins, acacia wood; ⁶ oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; ⁷ onyx stones and setting stones for the ephod and for the breastplate.

⁸ “Have them make a Sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them. ⁹ You are to make it all precisely according to everything that I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all the furnishings within—just so you must make it.

¹⁰ “Now they are to make an Ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits in length, one and a half cubits wide, and a cubit and a half high. ¹¹ You are to overlay it with pure gold, inside and out, and make a crown of gold around it. ¹² You are to cast four rings of gold for it, and place them in its four feet. Two rings will be on one side, and two rings on the other side. ¹³ Also make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. ¹⁴ You are to put the poles into the rings on the sides of the Ark, in order to carry the Ark. ¹⁵ The poles are to remain in the rings of the Ark, and not be taken from it. ¹⁶ You are to put the Testimony, which I will give you, into the Ark.

¹⁷ “Then you are to make an atonement cover^[e] of pure gold, two and a half cubits long, one cubit and a half wide. ¹⁸ Also make two cheruvim of gold, from hammered work, at the two ends of the atonement cover. ¹⁹ Make one cheruv at one end and one cheruv at the other end. Of one piece with the atonement cover you are to make the cheruvim at its two ends. ²⁰ The cheruvim are to spread out their wings above, shielding the atonement cover with their wings, each facing its companion. The faces of the cheruvim are to be turned toward the atonement cover. ²¹ You are to put the atonement cover on top of the Ark, and inside the Ark you will put the Testimony that I will give you.

²² “I will meet with you there. I will speak with you from above the atonement cover—from between the two cheruvim that are on the Ark of the Testimony—about all that I will command you, for Bnei-Yisrael.

²³ “You will make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long, one cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high. ²⁴ You are to overlay it with pure gold, and make a crown of gold around it. ²⁵ Make a border a single handwidth wide around it and a golden crown for the border all around. ²⁶ Also make four gold rings for it, and put the rings in the four corners that are on its four feet. ²⁷ The rings are to be close to the borders, as holders for the poles to carry the table. ²⁸ You are to make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, so that the table may be carried with them. ²⁹ You are also to make the dishes, pans, jars and bowls to pour drink offerings, from pure gold. ³⁰ Always set the bread of the Presence^[f] on the table before Me.

³¹ “You are to make a menorah of pure gold, by hammered work. Its base, stem, cups, bulbs and flowers are to be one piece. ³² There are to be six branches coming out of the sides, three branches of the menorah out of one side, and three branches out of the other. ³³ There are to be three cups shaped like almond blossoms in one branch, each with a bulb and flower, then three cups made like almond blossoms in the next branch, each with a bulb and flower, and so forth for the six branches coming out of the menorah. ³⁴ Within the menorah will be four cups made like almond blossoms, with bulbs and flowers. ³⁵ There is to be a bulb under two branches of the first piece, a bulb under two branches of the second piece, and a bulb under two branches of the third piece, for the six branches coming out of the menorah. ³⁶ Their bulbs and their branches are to be one piece—all of it a single hammered work of pure gold. ³⁷ “You are also to make the seven lamps for it, and set the lamps up to shed light over the space before it.

³⁸ “The tongs and the censers are to be of pure gold. ³⁹ It is to be made from a talent of pure gold, with all these pieces. ⁴⁰ See that you make them according to their pattern being shown to you on the mountain.