Just three months after the Israelites left Egypt, they came to the wilderness of Sinai, and they pitched their tents at the mountain of Sinai.
The Lord called Moses from the mountain. Moses went up to the mountain to God. God said to Moses to tell the Israelites, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. I have protected you and carried you like an eagle wearing her little ones on her wings. I brought you to Me. If you obey now and do what I say, and if you keep my covenant then you will be my own people, for all the earth is mine.
Moses came down from the mountain He told the Israelites everything that the Lord had said to him. All the people agreed, saying, We will do all that the Lord has said. Moses told the Lord what the people said. The Lord said to Moses; I will come to you in a dark cloud so that people can hear when I speak with you. Then they will always believe you.
The Lord said to Moses, that he had to cleanse the people that day and the next day and tell them to wash their clothes. They should not go uphill or touch the mountain. If someone or an animal touched the mountain, he has to die. Moses came down from the mountain and went to the people. He cleansed them and said they should wash their clothes. He said to the people, You must be ready tomorrow, and you must not sleep with a woman.
On the third day, when it was morning, there was thunder and lightning and a dark cloud on the mountain. The Israelites heard someone blow the ramshorn very hard. Everybody in the camp was very scared and they trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. The whole Mount Sinai was full of smoke because the Lord had come in a fire on the mountain. The smoke went up in the air like the smoke of an oven, and the whole mountain trembled. The ramshorn was blown unceasingly and the noise was deafening. Moses spoke, and God answered him, His answer was like thunder.
The Lord said to Moses, Go down and bring Aaron back with you. Moses then went down to the people. All the people heard the thunder and the ramshorn. They also saw the lightning and the mountain that was full of smoke. When the people saw it, they trembled and they stood far away. These are the things God told his people:
I am the Lord your God. I am the one who freed you from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. You must not worship any other gods except me. You must not make any idols. Don’t make any statues or pictures of anything up in the sky or of anything on the earth or of anything down in the water. Don’t worship or serve idols of any kind, because I, the Lord, am your God. I hate it if my people worship other gods. People who sin against me become my enemies, and I will punish them. And I will punish their children, their grandchildren, and even their great-grandchildren. But I will be very kind to people who love me and obey my commands. I will be kind to their families for thousands of generations. You must not use the name of the Lord lightly. If you do, the Lord will not let you go unpunished. You must remember to keep the Sabbath a special day. You may work six days a week to do your job. But the seventh day is a day of rest in honour of the Lord your God. So on that day, no one should work—not you, your sons and daughters, or your men and women slaves. Even your animals and the foreigners living in your cities must not work! That is because the Lord worked six days and made the sky, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. And on the seventh day, he rested. In this way the Lord blessed the Sabbath—the day of rest. He made that a very special day. You must honour and respect your father and your mother. Do this so that you will have a full life in the land that the Lord your God gives you. You must not murder anyone. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal anything. You must not tell lies about other people. You must not want to take your neighbour’s house. You must not want his wife. And you must not want his men and women servants or his cattle or his donkeys. You must not want to take anything that belongs to another person.
Then the Lord told Moses to say this to the Israelites: Your people have seen that I talked with you from heaven. So you must not make idols using gold or silver to compete with me. You must not make these false gods. The Lord said to Moses, Come to me on the mountain. I have written my teachings and laws on two stone tablets. These teachings and laws are for the people. I will give these stone tablets to you.
Moses went up the mountain. The cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day, the Lord spoke to Moses from the cloud. The Israelites could see the Glory of the Lord. It was like a fire burning on top of the mountain.
Then Moses went higher up the mountain into the cloud. He was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. Hearing the law from Almighty God did not change these people. They were still sinful and rebellious.
Remember the Bible is not just a made-up story. It is the word of God and it is a true story. Everything happened exactly as the Bible tells us.
Thank you for reading.
Sources: ERV Easy to read Bible, ICB International Children's Bible, The Message Bible, The New King James Bible.
Images: freebibleimages.org