The Covenant Ceremony
Exodus 24He said to Moses, “Come up to YHWH, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. Y’all are to worship from a distance. Moses alone is to come near to YHWH, but the others must not come near. The people may not go up with him.”
Moses came and told the people all YHWH’s words, and all the ordinances, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “Every word that YHWH has spoken will we do.”
Moses wrote all YHWH’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to YHWH. 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, “We will do all that YHWH has said, and we will obey.”
Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which YHWH has made with y’all concerning all these words.”
The Elders on Mount Sinai
Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like pavement of lapis lazuli, as clear as the blue sky. He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.
YHWH said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them.”
Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain. He said to the elders, “Y’all wait here for us, until we return to y’all. Look, Aaron and Hur are with y’all. Whoever has a dispute can go to them.”
Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. YHWH’s glory settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. The seventh day he called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. The appearance of YHWH’s glory was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.