1Then the LORD said to Moses, "Ascend to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and bow down from a distance."2Moses alone shall approach the LORD, but the others shall not approach, and the people shall not go up with him.3Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the judgments. All the people answered with one voice and said, "We will do all the words that the LORD has spoken."4Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar under the mountain and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.5He sent the young men of the sons of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of bulls to the LORD.6Moses took half the blood and put it in vessels, and he scattered the other half of the blood on the altar.7He took the scroll of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "We will do and hear all that the LORD has spoken."8Moses took the blood and scattered it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you concerning all these words."9Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up.10They saw the God of Israel, and under his feet was something like sapphire brickwork and like the clear blue of the sky.11He did not lay his hand on the chiefs of the sons of Israel. They saw God and ate and drank.12The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay there, and I will give you the stone tablets and the law and the commandment that I have written to teach them."13Moses set out with Joshua his assistant, and Moses went up the mountain of God.14To the elders he said, "Wait here for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are with you; anyone with a dispute may approach them."15Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.16The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud.17The appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the sons of Israel.18Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. He remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.