THE COVENANT CEREMONY

24 Then he said to Moses, “Go up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders,d and bow in worship at a distance. 2 Moses alone is to approach the Lord, but the others are not to approach, and the people are not to go up with him.”

3 Moses came and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, “We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.”e 4 And Moses wrotef down all the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning and set up an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain. 5 Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. 6 Moses took half the blood and set it in basins; the other half of the blood he splattered on the altar. 7 He then took the covenant scroll and read it aloud to the people. They responded, “We will do and obey all that the Lord has commanded.”

8 Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.”g

9 Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders, 10 and they sawh the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself.i 11 God did not harmD the Israelite nobles; they sawj him, and they ate and drank.