The Opportunity to Begin Again

10:1 At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark.1 10:2 I will write on the tablets the same words2 that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark.” 10:3 So I made an ark of acacia3 wood and carved out two stone tablets just like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. 10:4 The Lord4 then wrote on the tablets the same words,5 the ten commandments,6 which he7 had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he8 gave them to me. 10:5 Then I turned, went down the mountain, and placed the tablets into the ark I had made—they are still there, just as the Lord commanded me.