Beginning

Israel at Mount Sinai

19 In the third month after the children of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came into the Wilderness of Sinai. ² When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the Wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness. Israel camped there before the mountain.

³ Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel: ⁴ ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. ⁵ Now therefore, if you will faithfully obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My special possession out of all the nations, for all the earth is Mine. ⁶ And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

⁷ So Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him. ⁸ Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.

⁹ The Lord said to Moses, “Indeed, I am going to come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and always believe in you.” Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

¹⁰ The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and have them wash their clothes, ¹¹ and be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai. ¹² You shall set boundaries for the people all around, saying, ‘Take heed to yourselves so that you not go up onto the mountain or touch its border. Whoever touches the mountain will surely be put to death. ¹³ No hand will touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through, whether it be beast or man. He shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.”

¹⁴ So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and sanctified the people, and they washed their clothes. ¹⁵ He said to the people, “Be ready for the third day. Do not go near your wives.”

¹⁶ So on the third day, in the morning, there was thunder and lightning, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet. All the people who were in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. ¹⁸ Now Mount Sinai was completely covered in smoke because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and the smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently. ¹⁹ When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice.^[a]

²⁰ The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. ²¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, lest they force their way to the Lord to look, and many of them perish. ²² Let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break through against them.”

²³ Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, ‘Set boundaries around the mountain, and sanctify it.’ ”

²⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Go, get down, and come up, you and Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people force their way through to come up to the Lord, lest He break through against them.”

²⁵ So Moses went down to the people and spoke to them.

The Ten Commandments^(A)

20 Now God spoke all these words, saying:

² I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

³ You shall have no other gods before Me.

⁴ You shall not make for yourself any graven idol, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water below the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of them who hate Me, ⁶ and showing lovingkindness to thousands of them who love Me and keep My commandments.

⁷ You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes His name in vain.

⁸ Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or your sojourner who is within your gates. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

¹² Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³ You shall not murder.

¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵ You shall not steal.

¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

¹⁸ All the people witnessed the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. ¹⁹ They said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”

²⁰ Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, so that the fear of Him may be before you so that you do not sin.”

²¹ The people stood a distance away as Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

The Law About the Altar

²² Then the Lord said to Moses: Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “You yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. ²³ You shall not make gods of silver alongside Me or make gods of gold for yourselves.

²⁴ “You shall make an altar of earth for Me and on it you shall sacrifice your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep, and your oxen. In every place where I cause My name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. ²⁵ If you will make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you use your tool on it, you will have polluted it. ²⁶ And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.”

The Law About Servants^(B)

21 Now these are the judgments which you will set before them.

² If you buy a Hebrew servant, he will serve for six years, but in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. ³ If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife will go out with him. ⁴ If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he will go out by himself.

⁵ However, if the servant plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free,” ⁶ then his master will bring him to the judges, then he shall also bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

⁷ If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. ⁸ If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He has no authority to sell her to a foreign nation, because he has dealt deceitfully with her. ⁹ If he has designated her for his son, then he shall deal with her according to the customary rights of daughters. ¹⁰ If he marries another wife, then he must not diminish the first one’s food, her clothing, or her marital rights. ¹¹ If he does not provide these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

The Law About Violence

¹² He that strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. ¹³ However, if it was not premeditated, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place where he may flee. ¹⁴ But if a man willfully comes upon his neighbor in order to kill him cunningly, then you must take him from My altar, that he may die.

¹⁵ He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

¹⁶ He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.

¹⁷ He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸ If men fight and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die, but must remain in bed, ¹⁹ and then if he gets up and walks around on his staff, then he who struck him shall go unpunished. Only he must pay for his loss of time and shall see to it that he is thoroughly healed.

²⁰ If a man strikes his male servant or his female servant with a rod so that he or she dies at his hand, then he shall surely be punished. ²¹ Nevertheless, if he survives for a day or two, then he shall not be punished, for it is his money.

²² If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that her child is born prematurely,^[b] yet there is no serious injury, then he shall be surely punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. ²³ But if there is any serious injury, then you shall give life for life, ²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵ burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

²⁶ If a man strikes the eye of his male servant or the eye of his female servant so that it is destroyed, then he must let him go free on account of his eye. ²⁷ If he knocks out his male servant’s tooth or his female servant’s tooth, then he shall let him or her go free on account of the tooth.

Laws About Property

²⁸ If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, then the ox must surely be stoned and its flesh must not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will be acquitted. ²⁹ But if the ox has had the habit of goring, and the owner has been made aware of it, and he has not kept it in, and it has killed a man or a woman, then the ox shall be stoned and its owner also shall be put to death. ³⁰ If a ransom is set for him, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatever is demanded of him. ³¹ Whether it gored a son or gored a daughter, it will be done to him according to this rule. ³² If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, then its owner shall give thirty shekels^[c] of silver to their master, and the ox must be stoned.

³³ If a man opens a pit or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, ³⁴ the owner of the pit must make restitution. He must give money to their owner, and the dead animal will be his.

³⁵ If one man’s ox hurts another’s so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide its proceeds and divide the dead ox also. ³⁶ Or if it be known that the ox has had the habit of goring and its owner has not kept it in, then he shall surely pay ox for ox and the dead animal will become his own.