Come up to Me
Moses reads the covenant aloud and the people answer that they will do it, so he sprinkles the blood of the covenant on them. The elders climb the mountain, see the Father of Israel with sapphire pavement under his feet, and eat and drink. Moses enters the cloud.
24 1He said to Moses, "Come up to me—you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel—and bow in worship from a distance. 2Only Moses may approach me; the others must not approach, and the people must not go up with him."
3Moses came and told the people all our Father's words and all the rules. All the people answered as one, "Everything our Father has said, we will do."
4Moses wrote down all the words of our Father, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the mountain's foot, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5He sent young Israelite men who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as peace offerings to our Father. 6Moses took half the blood, put it in basins; the other half he splashed on the altar. 7Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. They said, "Everything our Father has spoken, we will do and obey."
8Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, the blood of the covenant our Father made with you, based on all these words." a a v8 The blood sealed the covenant between the people and our Father; Jesus took up these very words over the cup — "this is my blood of the covenant" — making his own blood the seal of the new covenant that brings us home.
9Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. 10They saw the Father of Israel; under his feet, something like a pavement of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. 11He did not lay a hand on Israel's leaders; they saw our Father, ate, and drank.
12Our Father told Moses, "Come up the mountain to me and stay there; I will give you stone tablets with the law and commandment I wrote to teach them."
13Moses set out with Joshua his assistant, and Moses went up the mountain of our Father. 14He told the elders, "Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are with you—whoever has a dispute may go to them."
15When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16the glory of our Father settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days, and on the seventh day he called to Moses from within the cloud. 17To the Israelites, our Father's glory looked like a consuming fire on the mountaintop. 18Moses entered the cloud and climbed the mountain; Moses stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
