In the prologue to the laws Moses tells the people how and why the laws were given to him. God began to give them laws forty years earlier, at Horeb (Mount Sinai). After they heard the Decalogue, they were so terrified that they asked Moses to receive God’s further instructions on their behalf, promising to obey whatever he conveyed to them. The laws that Moses is about to convey to the people now, forty years later,
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