The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain. Stay there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and the commandments I have written for the people’s instruction.”
God said, “Go out and stand in front of the Lord on the mountain.” As the Lord was passing by, a fierce wind tore mountains and shattered rocks ahead of the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake.
Then Moses went up the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “This is what you must say to the descendants of Jacob. Tell the Israelites,
When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. They said to him, “We don’t know what has happened to this Moses, who led us out of Egypt. Make gods who will lead us.”
The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two ⌞more⌟ stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets which you smashed.
“But this is the promise that I will make to Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put my teachings inside them, and I will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
So whoever sets aside any command that seems unimportant and teaches others to do the same will be unimportant in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches what the commands say will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
It’s clear that you are Christ’s letter, written as a result of our ministry. You are a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, a letter written not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
The ministry that brought death was inscribed on stone. Yet, it came with such glory that the people of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’ face. His face was shining with glory, even though that glory was fading.
These are the commandments the Lord spoke to your whole assembly on the mountain. He spoke in a loud voice from the fire, the cloud, and the gloomy darkness. Then he stopped speaking. He wrote the commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
But you stay here with me. I will give you all the commands, laws, and rules that you must teach them to obey in the land which I’m giving them to possess.”
It contained the gold incense burner and the ark of the Lord’s promise. The ark was completely covered with gold. In the ark were the gold jar filled with manna, Aaron’s staff that had blossomed, and the tablets on which the promise was written.