cont. from New Commands and a New Covenant (pg 63) **The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction. **When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mountain Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. **The Lord said to Moses, Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give. **Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you. **Along with giving Moses the Ten Commandments and other laws, God instructed him as to how to organize worship for the Israelites. From that time on, Gods presence would reside in the tabernacle, a portable tent of worship. Inside the tabernacle sat the lavishly designed ark of the covenant, containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. **God set apart priests for service, who conducted ritual sacrifices and other important worship activities. One day every week--the Sabbath--was set apart to worship God and to rest from chores and business. **Moses was away on the mountain for nearly six weeks. Meanwhile in the valley below, the peoples impatience would lead to Moses facing a bitter homecoming. **When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we dont know what has happened to him. **Aaron answered them, Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me. So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt. **When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, Tomorrow there be a festival to the Lord. So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. **Then the Lord said to Moses, Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. **I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:06:37 +0000
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