Exodus 24:1–11

THE COVENANT CEREMONY

24Then 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. ²Moses alone is to approach the Lord, but the others are not to approach, and the people are not to go up with him.”

³Moses 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 wrote^f 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. ⁵Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. ⁶Moses took half the blood and set it in basins; the other half of the blood he splattered on the altar. ⁷He 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.”

⁸Moses 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

⁹Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders, ¹⁰and they saw^h 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 harm^I the Israelite nobles; they saw^j him, and they ate and drank.