The Command to Leave Sinai

33 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go up from here, you ^(A)and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ^(B)‘To your descendants I will give it.’ ^2 (C)And I will send My Angel before you, ^(D)and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. ³ Go up ^(E)to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest ^(F)I ^[a]consume you on the way, for you are a ^(G)stiff-necked^[b] people.”

⁴ And when the people heard this bad news, ^(H)they mourned, ^(I)and no one put on his ornaments. ⁵ For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the children of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you. Now therefore, take off your ^[c]ornaments, that I may ^(J)know what to do to you.’ ” ⁶ So the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb.

Moses Meets with the Lord

⁷ Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and ^(K)called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who ^(L)sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. ⁸ So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood ^(M)at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. ⁹ And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord ^(N)talked with Moses. ¹⁰ All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and ^(O)worshiped, each man in his tent door. ¹¹ So ^(P)the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but ^(Q)his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.