¹⁰ The Lord replied, “Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the Lord—the awesome power I will display for you. ¹¹ But listen carefully to everything I command you today. Then I will go ahead of you and drive out the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

¹² “Be very careful never to make a treaty with the people who live in the land where you are going. If you do, you will follow their evil ways and be trapped. ¹³ Instead, you must break down their pagan altars, smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles. ¹⁴ You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.

¹⁵ “You must not make a treaty of any kind with the people living in the land. They lust after their gods, offering sacrifices to them. They will invite you to join them in their sacrificial meals, and you will go with them. ¹⁶ Then you will accept their daughters, who sacrifice to other gods, as wives for your sons. And they will seduce your sons to commit adultery against me by worshiping other gods. ¹⁷ You must not make any gods of molten metal for yourselves.

¹⁸ “You must celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, just as I commanded you. Celebrate this festival annually at the appointed time in early spring, in the month of Abib,^[a] for that is the anniversary of your departure from Egypt.

¹⁹ “The firstborn of every animal belongs to me, including the firstborn males^[b] from your herds of cattle and your flocks of sheep and goats. ²⁰ A firstborn donkey may be bought back from the Lord by presenting a lamb or young goat in its place. But if you do not buy it back, you must break its neck. However, you must buy back every firstborn son.

“No one may appear before me without an offering.

²¹ “You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but on the seventh day you must stop working, even during the seasons of plowing and harvest.

²² “You must celebrate the Festival of Harvest^[c] with the first crop of the wheat harvest, and celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest^[d] at the end of the harvest season. ²³ Three times each year every man in Israel must appear before the Sovereign, the Lord, the God of Israel. ²⁴ I will drive out the other nations ahead of you and expand your territory, so no one will covet and conquer your land while you appear before the Lord your God three times each year.

²⁵ “You must not offer the blood of my sacrificial offerings together with any baked goods containing yeast. And none of the meat of the Passover sacrifice may be kept over until the next morning.

²⁶ “As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

²⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down all these instructions, for they represent the terms of the covenant I am making with you and with Israel.”

²⁸ Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord^[e] wrote the terms of the covenant—the Ten Commandments^[f]—on the stone tablets.