Shared Word Translation
Exodus 33
The Presence of the LORD
And the LORD said to Moses, “Go up from here, you and the people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’” “And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Go to a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in your midst, because you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.” When the people heard this bad word, they mourned, and no one put on his adornment. And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the children of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up in your midst for one moment, I would consume you. Now take your adornment down from upon you, and I will know what I will do to you.’” So the children of Israel stripped themselves of their adornments from Mount Horeb. Now Moses would take the tent and pitch it for himself outside the camp, far from the camp; and he called it the Tent of Meeting. And everyone seeking the LORD would go out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise, and each would stand at the entrance of his tent and watch Moses until he entered the tent. And whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stand at the entrance of the tent, and he would speak with Moses. And all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent; and all the people would rise and bow down, each at the entrance of his tent. And the LORD would speak with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his companion. Then he would return to the camp, but his attendant Joshua son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from inside the tent. Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not made known to me whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, show me now your ways, that I may know you, in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”
And he said, “My presence will go, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence does not go, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are set apart, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?”
And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
And he said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass before you and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion to whom I will show compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”