Exodus 33

1Yahweh said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go up to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’

2I will send an angel ahead of 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 up among you, because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise I might destroy you on the way.”

4When the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on any jewelry.

5Yahweh said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up among you for a single moment, I would destroy you. Now take off your jewelry, and I will decide what to do with you.’”

6So the Israelites stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Horeb onward.

7Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, some distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. Anyone who wanted to seek 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, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.

9Whenever Moses went into 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, all the people would rise and bow down, each at the entrance of his own tent.

11Yahweh would speak to Moses face to face, as someone speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his assistant Joshua son of Nun, a young man, would not leave the tent.

12Moses said to Yahweh, “See, you have been telling me, ‘Lead 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 with me.’

13Now if I have found favor with you, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Consider that this nation is your people.”

14Yahweh said, “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 have found favor with you, I and your people? Is it not by your going with us, so that I and your people are set apart from all the other peoples on the face of the earth?”

17Yahweh said to Moses, “I will do this very thing you have asked, because you have found favor with me, and I know you by name.”

18Then Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

19Yahweh said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name ‘Yahweh.’ I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion.”

20But he said, “You cannot see my face, for no human being can see me and live.”

21Yahweh said, “Here is a place beside me. You are to stand on the rock.

22When 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 away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen.”