The command to leave Sinai
1Yahweh said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.” 4When the people heard this harsh word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5For Yahweh had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went with you for a single moment, I would destroy you. Now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do with you.’” 6So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward. 7Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp, some distance away, and he called it the tent of meeting. Anyone who sought Yahweh would go out to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each at the entrance of his own tent, watching Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9As Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stand at the entrance of the tent, and Yahweh would speak with Moses. 10When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, they would all rise and bow down, each at the entrance of his own tent. 11Yahweh would speak with Moses face to face, as one speaks with a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun would not leave the tent.
Moses asks to see Yahweh’s glory
12Moses said to Yahweh, “Look, you have been telling me, ‘Bring this people up,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have found favor in my sight.’ 13Now if I have indeed found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and continue to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14Yahweh answered, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15Moses said to him, “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16How else will anyone know that I and your people have found favor in your sight, unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from every other people on the face of the earth?” 17Yahweh said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name.” 18Then Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19Yahweh said, “I will make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name Yahweh before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” 20But he said, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.” 21Yahweh said, “There is a place near me where you shall stand on the rock. 22While my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back — but my face must not be seen.”
