THE COVENANT IS RENEWED

The Lord said to Moses, “I now make a covenant with the people of Israel.  In their presence I will do great things such as never been done anywhere on earth among any of the nations.  All the people will see what great things I, the Lord, can do, because I am going to do an awesome thing for you.  Obey the laws I am giving you today.  I will drive out the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as you advance.  Do not make any treaties with the people of the country into which you are going, because this could be a fatal trap for you.  Instead, tear down their altars, destroy their sacred pillars, and cut down the symbols of their goddess Asherah.

“Do not worship any other god, because I, the Lord, tolerate no rivals.  Do not make any treaties with the people of the country, because when they worship their pagan gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you to join them, and you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.  Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods. 

“Do not make and worship gods of metal.

“Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread.  As I have commanded you, eat unleavened bread for seven days in the month of Abib, because it was in that month that you left Egypt. 

“Every first-born son and first born male domestic animal belongs to Me, but you are to buy back every first born donkey by offering a lamb in its place.  If you do not buy it back, break its neck.  Buy back every first born son. 

“No one is to appear before Me without an offering.  You have six days in which to do your work, but do not work on the seventh day, not even during ploughing time or harvest. 

“Keep the Harvest Festival when you begin to harvest the first crop of your wheat, and keep the Festival of Shelters in the autumn when you gather your fruit. 

“Three times a year all your men must come to worship Me, the Lord, the God of Israel.  After I have driven out the nations before you and extended your territory, no one will try to conquer your country during the three festivals.

“Do not offer bread made with yeast when you sacrifice an animal to me.  Do not keep until the following morning any part of the animal killed at the Passover festival. 

“Each year bring to the house of the Lord the first corn that you harvest. 

“Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother’s milk.”  

The Lord said to Moses, “Write these words down, because it is on the basis of these words that I am making a covenant with you and with Israel.”  Moses stayed there with the Lord forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.  He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant – the Ten Commandments.

(Exodus 34:10-28)

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God