Exodus 33:1–11

The Command to Leave Sinai

33The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you ^oand the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To ^pyour offspring I will give it.’ ²I will send an ^qangel before you, ^rand I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ^3sGo up to a land flowing with milk and honey; ^tbut I will not go up among you, ^ulest I consume you on the way, for you are a ^vstiff-necked people.”

⁴When the people heard this disastrous word, they ^wmourned, and ^xno one put on his ornaments. ⁵For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a ^vstiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would ^yconsume you. So now ^xtake off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” ⁶Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

The Tent of Meeting

⁷Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and ^zhe called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who ^asought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. ⁸Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and ^beach would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. ⁹When Moses entered the tent, the ^cpillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord¹ would speak with Moses. ¹⁰And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. ¹¹Thus ^dthe Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his ^eassistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.