¹⁵ Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence^(A) does not go with us, do not send us up from here. ¹⁶ How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?^(B) What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”^(C)

¹⁰ But the whole assembly talked about stoning^(A) them. Then the glory of the Lord^(B) appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. ¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt?^(C) How long will they refuse to believe in me,^(D) in spite of all the signs^(E) I have performed among them? ¹² I will strike them down with a plague^(F) and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation^(G) greater and stronger than they.”^(H)

¹³ Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them.^{(I) 14} And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard^(J) that you, Lord, are with these people^(K) and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face,^(L) that your cloud stays over them,^(M) and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.^{(N) 15} If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath,^(O) so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’^(P)

¹⁷ “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared:

⁷ What other nation is so great^(A) as to have their gods near^(B) them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

The Lord Is God

³² Ask^(A) now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth;^(B) ask from one end of the heavens to the other.^(C) Has anything so great^(D) as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? ³³ Has any other people heard the voice of God^[a] speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?^{(E) 34} Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation,^(F) by testings,^(G) by signs^(H) and wonders,^(I) by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,^(J) or by great and awesome deeds,^(K) like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

⁷ The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous^(A) than other peoples, for you were the fewest^(B) of all peoples.^(C)

¹⁵ Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved^(A) them, and he chose you,^(B) their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.^(C)