The Daily Audio Bible

¹⁶ On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning. A thick cloud was there over the mountain. The people heard the noise of a loud trumpet. They were so afraid that their bodies were shaking.

¹⁷ Then Moses led the people away from their tents to meet with God. They went and they stood at the edge of the mountain. ¹⁸ Smoke covered Sinai mountain because the Lord had come down on the mountain, like a fire. The smoke rose up from the mountain, like smoke from a great fire. The whole mountain shook very much. ¹⁹ The noise of the trumpet became louder and louder. Moses spoke to God and God answered him with a loud voice.

²⁰ The Lord came down onto the top of Sinai mountain. Then the Lord told Moses that he must come up to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up the mountain. ²¹ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down to the people. Warn them that they must stay away from the mountain. They must not cross the line to try to see me, the Lord. If they do that, many of them will die. ²² Even the priests must make themselves clean before they come near to me. If they do not obey this command, I will punish them. I am the Lord.’

²³ Moses said to the Lord, ‘The people cannot come up Sinai mountain. You warned us that we must make a line round the edge of the mountain. You said that we must make the mountain a special place.’

²⁴ The Lord replied, ‘Now go back down. Then bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must stay where they are. They must not try to come up here where I am. If they come across the line, I will punish them.’

²⁵ So Moses went down to the people. He told them what the Lord had said.

God's 10 special commands

20 Then God spoke all these words:

² ‘I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt, the country where you were slaves.

³ You must not have any other gods except me.

⁴ You must not make any idol for yourself. Do not make a false god in the shape of anything that is in the sky above. Do not make one in the shape of anything on the earth or in the sea. ⁵ You must not bend down your head to any idol or worship it. I am the Lord your God and I want you to belong to me alone. I will punish children because of the bad things that their fathers have done. I will also punish their children and their grandchildren too. That is how I will punish everyone who turns against me. ⁶ But I will truly love all those who love me. They are the people who obey my laws. I will continue to love them and their families for ever.

⁷ You must not speak the name of the Lord your God in a wrong way. The Lord will punish anyone who speaks his name in a wrong way.

⁸ Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it as a special day for me. ⁹ You have six days every week to do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a Sabbath day. It is special for the Lord your God. You must not do any work on that day. Your son and your daughter must not work on that day. Your servants, male or female, must not work on that day. The foreign person who lives among you and even your animals must not work on that day. ¹¹ In six days, the Lord made the heavens, the earth and the sea. He made everything that is in them. But on the seventh day, the Lord rested. So he blessed the Sabbath day and he made it special.

¹² Always respect your father and your mother. Then you will live for many years in the land that the Lord your God will give to you.

¹³ You must not murder anyone.

¹⁴ You must not have sex with another person's husband or wife.

¹⁵ You must not take another person's things for yourself.

¹⁶ You must not say false things against your neighbour.

¹⁷ You must not want to take your neighbour's house for yourself. You must not want to take his wife, or his servants, male or female. You must not want to take his ox, or his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.’

The people are very afraid

¹⁸ The people heard the loud thunder and they saw the bright lightning. They heard the noise of the trumpet. They saw the smoke on the mountain. They were so afraid that their bodies were shaking. They would not come near. ¹⁹ They said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself. We will listen to you. But do not let God speak to us. If he does, we will die.’

²⁰ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you. He wants you to respect him and to obey him. Then you will not do things that are wrong.’

²¹ So the people stayed away from the mountain. But Moses walked towards the thick, dark cloud, where God was.

Rules about certain things

²² Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell this to the Israelites: “You yourselves have heard me speak to you from heaven. ²³ Do not make any idols to take my place. Do not use silver or gold to make an idol that you will worship.

²⁴ Instead, use earth to make an altar for me. You must offer sacrifices to me on the altar. You may take your sheep, your goats or your cows to make burnt offerings or friendship offerings or other sacrifices to me. Make an altar like this in any place that I choose for you to worship me. In those places, I will come to you and I will bless you. ²⁵ You may also use stones from the ground to make an altar for me. But do not use any tools to cut the stones. If you use a tool on the stones, the altar will not be right for you to worship me there.

²⁶ Do not make an altar which has stairs going up to it. If you do that, someone may see under your clothes when you climb up the stairs. Then you would be ashamed.”

Israelite slaves

21 These are the laws that you must put in front of the Israelites:

² If you buy an Israelite slave, he must work for you for six years. But in the seventh year he will become a free man. He can leave you. He does not have to pay you any money. ³ If he came to you alone, he is free to leave alone. If he came with a wife, she can also leave with him. ⁴ But if the master has given a wife to the slave, she belongs to her master. If she has children, they also belong to her master. The slave must then leave by himself, without his wife and children.

⁵ But perhaps the slave may say, “I love my master, my wife and my children. I will not go away as a free man!” ⁶ Then his master must take the slave to stand in front of the judges.^[a] He must lead the slave to stand beside the door, or the wood that holds the door. Then the master must push the sharp point of a tool through the slave's ear. After that, he will serve his master for all his life.

⁷ Perhaps a man may sell his daughter to someone as a slave. She is not free to leave her master after six years, as the male slaves are. ⁸ Her master has chosen her for himself. If she does not make her master happy, he must let her family buy her back from him. He cannot sell her to a foreign person. He has not done what he promised to her.^{[b] 9} If the master had chosen the girl to marry his son, he must take care of her like his own daughter. ¹⁰ If the master marries another woman as well, he must still take care of the first woman. He must continue to give her food and clothes. He must not refuse to sleep with her. ¹¹ If he does not do these three things, she may leave him. She does not have to pay him any money.

When people attack other people

¹² Perhaps a person may hit another person so that he dies. You must punish the murderer with death. ¹³ But perhaps he had not decided to kill the other person. Perhaps God let it happen. Then the man should run away to a safe place that I will choose for you. ¹⁴ But if he already decided to kill the other person, he is a murderer. You must punish him with death. Even if he runs to my altar as a safe place, take him away from there and kill him.

¹⁵ If someone attacks his father or his mother, you must punish him with death.

¹⁶ If someone catches another person to sell him, you must punish him with death. Kill him even if you find him when he has not yet sold the man that he caught.

¹⁷ If someone curses his father or his mother, you must punish him with death.

¹⁸ Perhaps two men argue and they fight one another. One man might hit the other man with a stone or with his fist. The man that he hit might not die but he might have to stay in bed for some time. ¹⁹ After that, he may get up. He may be able to walk about outside, if he uses a stick. Then the man who hit him is not guilty. But he must pay the man that he has hurt. He must pay him for the time that he has not been able to work. He must also make sure that the man becomes completely well again.

²⁰ Perhaps a master may hit his male slave or his female slave with a stick. If the slave dies because of this, you must punish the master. ²¹ But if the slave is still alive after one or two days, do not punish his master. The master has already lost the slave's work for that time.

Jesus speaks against the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees

¹³ Jesus spoke to the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees. ‘It will be very bad for you,’ he said. ‘You are hypocrites! You have stopped people who wanted to go into the kingdom of heaven. It is like you have shut the door so that they cannot go in. Then you yourselves do not even go in.

¹⁴ [It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You take things away from women after their husbands have died. You pray for a long time so that other people will praise you. God will punish you much more than other people.]^[a]

¹⁵ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You travel far across land and sea. You do this to make one person believe what you believe. Then, when he does believe your ideas, he becomes worse than you are. He shows that he belongs to hell even more than you do.

¹⁶ It will be very bad for you, teachers. You cannot see what is true, but you show people which way to go.^[b] You say to people, “You may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gold things in the temple. Then it is a serious promise, and you must do it.” ¹⁷ This shows that you are fools. You do not understand what is true. Think about which of these is more important. Is it the gold things in the temple? Or is it the temple itself? It is the temple that makes the gold things special. ¹⁸ You also say to people, “You may make a promise by the altar in the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gifts on that altar. Then it is a serious promise and you must do it.” ¹⁹ You are people who cannot understand what is true. Think about which of these things is more important. Is it the gifts on the altar? Or is it the altar itself? It is the altar that makes the gifts special. ²⁰ Remember this: Somebody may make a promise by the name of the altar. Then he is making a promise by God's name. The altar as well as all the gifts on it are special to God. ²¹ Also, somebody may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then he is making a promise in the name of God, who lives there. ²² Or somebody may make a promise by heaven. Then he is making a promise by the place where God sits and rules. So he is making a promise by the name of God himself.^[c]

²³ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! When you grow spices to cook with food, you give a tenth part of these small things to God. You are right to obey this rule. But you do not obey the more important parts of God's Law. You do not help people in a good way. You are not kind to them. You do not always do what God says is right. You should have done these important things as well as the other small things. ²⁴ You are like blind people, but you show other people which way to go. You carefully take a small fly out of your water so that you do not drink it. But then you drink the large animal that is swimming in it!^[d]

²⁵ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You always clean the outside of your cups and plates very carefully. You only clean the outside part that people can see. But on the inside, everything is still dirty. Inside you, your minds are full of bad thoughts. You want to have more things for yourself. You hurt other people to get what you want. ²⁶ Pharisees, you do not see what is true! You must first clean the inside of the cup. Then the outside that people can see will also be clean.

²⁷ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You are like a grave that has nice white paint on the outside and it looks beautiful. But on the inside it is full of bones and disgusting things. ²⁸ You are the same as that. Other people look at you. They think that you are good and you obey God. But on the inside you are hypocrites. Your minds are full of many bad thoughts.

²⁹ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You build up the places where people have buried God's prophets. You make the places where they have buried good people to be beautiful. ³⁰ You say, “Our ancestors killed God's prophets long ago. If we had lived at that time, we would not have helped our ancestors to do that.” ³¹ So you are speaking against yourselves. You show that you are the sons of those people who killed God's prophets. ³² Now you must finish the work that your ancestors began to do!

³³ You are like a family of dangerous snakes! You will not be able to run away. God will surely punish you, and he will send you to hell. ³⁴ So listen to this. God says, “I will send prophets to you. I will also send to you people who know many things. And I will send people to teach you what is true. But you will kill some of these people. You will kill some of them on a cross. In the places where you meet to pray, you will hit some of them with whips. They will run from one town to another town, but you will follow them.” ³⁵ Because of all this, God will punish you for all the good people that you and your ancestors have killed. Long ago, Abel was the first of those good people. You also killed Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. He died in the yard of the temple near the altar.^{[e] 36} Yes, I tell you this: God will punish the people who are alive today for all those murders.

³⁷ Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed God's prophets. They have thrown stones to kill other people that God has sent to you. Many times, I have wanted to bring all of your people near to me. A female bird covers her babies with her body to make them safe. But you would not let me keep you from danger like that. ³⁸ So listen! Your place will now become like a wilderness where nobody lives. ³⁹ And I tell you this. You will not see me again until the day when you say, “May the Lord God bless the man who comes with his authority!” ’^[f]

This is a song that David wrote.

God answers prayer

More danger!^[a]

7 My child, remember what I say. Keep my commands in your mind.

² Obey my commands, so that you live well. Keep my teaching safe. It is as valuable as your own eyes. ³ Keep it always in front of you. Think about my message all the time, as if you have written it on your heart.

⁴ Love wisdom in the same way that you love your sister. Be very careful to understand what is right. ⁵ If you do that, it will keep you safe from sin. You will not agree to sleep with an adulteress or a prostitute when she speaks sweet words to you.