When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, "What is this thing that you do for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning to evening?"

Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to inquire of God.

When they have a matter, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws."

Moses' father-in-law said to him, "The thing that you do is not good.

You shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and shall show them the way in which they must walk, and the work that they must do.

If you will do this thing, and God commands you so, then you will be able to endure, and all of these people also will go to their place in peace."

So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had said.

Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way into his own land.

In the third month after the children of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, on that same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

When they had departed from Rephidim, and had come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain.

'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself.

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;

The LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I come to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever." Moses told the words of the people to the LORD.

and be ready against the third day; for on the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai.

No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it is animal or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mountain."

It happened on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet; and all the people who were in the camp trembled.

Mount Sinai, all it, smoked, because the LORD descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.

When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice.

The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. The LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

Let the priests also, who come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth on them."

The LORD said to him, "Go down and you shall bring Aaron up with you, but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest he break forth on them."

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates;

for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance.

Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won't sin."

You shall make an altar of earth for me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I record my name I will come to you and I will bless you.

If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it.

"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.

If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.

then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.

"One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,

If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

"Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his possession, he shall surely be put to death.

"If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but is confined to bed;

But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.

If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him.

"If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal.

Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and the dead animal shall be his own.

"If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it, or sells it; he shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

If the thief is found breaking in, and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt of bloodshed for him.

If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt of bloodshed for him; he shall make restitution. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

If the stolen property is found in his hand alive, whether it is ox, donkey, or sheep, he shall pay double.

"If a man causes a field or vineyard to be eaten, and lets his animal loose, and it grazes in another man's field, he shall make restitution from his own field according to his produce; and if he shall have grazed over the whole field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field, and from the best of his own vineyard.

"If fire breaks out, and catches in thorns so that the shocks of grain, or the standing grain, or the field are consumed; he who kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

For every matter of trespass, whether it be for ox, for donkey, for sheep, for clothing, or for any kind of lost thing, about which one says, 'This is mine,' the cause of both parties shall come before God. He whom God condemns shall pay double to his neighbor.

"If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any animal to keep, and it dies or is injured, or driven away, no man seeing it;

If it is torn in pieces, let him bring it for evidence. He shall not make good that which was torn.

"Whoever has sex with an animal shall surely be put to death.

"You shall not wrong a foreigner, neither shall you oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What would he sleep in? It will happen, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am gracious.

You shall do likewise with your cattle and with your sheep. Seven days it shall be with its mother, then on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

"You shall be holy men to me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by animals in the field. You shall cast it to the dogs.

"You shall not spread a false report. Do not join your hand with the wicked to be an unjust witness.

You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; neither shall you testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice;

neither shall you favor a poor man in his cause.

"You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

"You shall not oppress a foreigner, for you know the heart of a foreigner, seeing you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

"For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase,

but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove.

"Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the alien may be refreshed.

You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt), and no one shall appear before me empty.

And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field: and the feast of harvest, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.

Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

"Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Do not provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.

But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off.

No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.

They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."

Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, "All the words which the LORD has spoken will we do."

Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that the LORD has spoken will we do, and be obedient."

Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you concerning all these words."

He did not lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.

The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the tables of stone with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them."

He said to the elders, "Wait here for us, until we come again to you. Behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them."

Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. The seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

The appearance of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Moses entered into the midst of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

"Speak to the children of Israel, that they take an offering for me. From everyone whose heart makes him willing you shall take my offering.

"They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Its length shall be two and a half cubits, its breadth a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height.

You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four feet. Two rings shall be on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it.

You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark.

The poles shall be in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it.

Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat.

The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.

You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you.

There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony, all that I command you for the children of Israel.

"You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two cubits shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth, and one and a half cubits its height.

You shall make a rim of a handbreadth around it. You shall make a golden molding on its rim around it.

You shall make four rings of gold for it, and put the rings in the four corners that are on its four feet.

You shall set bread of the presence on the table before me always.