21 Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest.
You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year.
Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel.
For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.
25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.
26 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
27 The LORD said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
He was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.[86 (#ulink_f0a6f583-3cdb-59b2-a8c6-de9f876d81b4)]
THE BIG REVEAL
We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not. But though knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can. . . . Ordinarily to be known by God is to be, for this purpose, in the category of things. We are, like earthworms, cabbages, and nebulae, objects of Divine knowledge. But when we (a) became aware of the fact—the present fact, not the generalization—and (b) assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled His sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view.
To put ourselves this on a personal footing with God could, in itself and without warrant. be nothing but presumption and illusion. But we are taught that it is not; that it is God who gives us that footing. For it is by the Holy Spirit that we cry “Father.” By unveiling, by confessing our sins and “making known” our requests. we assume the high rank of persons before Him. And He, descending. becomes a Person to us.
—from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
For reflection
Exodus 34:29–35
29 Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant[87 (#ulink_2924ff26-480d-560d-b136-707c3bbc6541)] in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.
When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.
But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them.
Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face;
but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded,
the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
35 Moses assembled all the congregation of the Israelites and said to them: These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do:
2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
You shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings on the sabbath day.
4 Moses said to all the congregation of the Israelites: This is the thing that the LORD has commanded:
Take from among you an offering to the LORD; let whoever is of a generous heart bring the LORD’s offering: gold, silver, and bronze;
blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine linen; goats’ hair,
tanned rams’ skins, and fine leather;[88 (#ulink_d94c4381-22e0-54ab-9f8a-3c0c42ed4fb0)] acacia wood,
oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense,
and onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece.
10 All who are skillful among you shall come and make all that the LORD has commanded: the tabernacle,
its tent and its covering, its clasps and its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases;
the ark with its poles, the mercy seat,[89 (#ulink_3a997dcd-db12-54e2-935f-15376f5004eb)] and the curtain for the screen;
the table with its poles and all its utensils, and the bread of the Presence;
the lampstand also for the light, with its utensils and its lamps, and the oil for the light;
and the altar of incense, with its poles, and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the entrance, the entrance of the tabernacle;
the altar of burnt offering, with its grating of bronze, its poles, and all its utensils, the basin with its stand;
the hangings of the court, its pillars and its bases, and the screen for the gate of the court;
the pegs of the tabernacle and the pegs of the court, and their cords;
the finely worked vestments for ministering in the holy place, the holy vestments for the priest Aaron, and the vestments of his sons, for their service as priests.
20 Then all the congregation of the Israelites withdrew from the presence of Moses.
And they came, everyone whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and brought the LORD’s offering to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the sacred vestments.
So they came, both men and women; all who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and pendants, all sorts of gold objects, everyone bringing an offering of gold to the LORD.
And everyone who possessed blue or purple or crimson yarn or fine linen or goats’ hair or tanned rams’ skins or fine leather,[88 (#ulink_d94c4381-22e0-54ab-9f8a-3c0c42ed4fb0)] brought them.
Everyone who could make an offering of silver or bronze brought it as the LORD’s offering; and everyone who possessed acacia wood of any use in the work, brought it.
All the skillful women spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun in blue and purple and crimson yarns and fine linen;
all the women whose hearts moved them to use their skill spun the goats’ hair.
And the leaders brought onyx stones and gems to be set in the ephod and the breastpiece,
and spices and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense.
