Go back, Moses, and listen to everything that the LORD our God says. Then return and tell us what he said to you. We will listen and obey.'

Then the two men left and went on toward Sodom, but the LORD remained with Abraham.

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud appeared on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast was heard. All the people in the camp trembled with fear.

When the people heard the thunder and the trumpet blast and saw the lightning and the smoking mountain, they trembled with fear and stood a long way off.

Moses replied, "Don't be afraid; God has only come to test you and make you keep on obeying him, so that you will not sin."

You alone, and none of the others, are to come near me. The people are not even to come up the mountain."

Moses went and told the people all the LORD's commands and all the ordinances, and all the people answered together, "We will do everything that the LORD has said."

This stopped the plague, and he was left standing between the living and the dead.

When God said that he would destroy his people, his chosen servant, Moses, stood up against God and kept his anger from destroying them.

Their ruler will come from their own nation, their prince from their own people. He will approach me when I invite him, for who would dare come uninvited? They will be my people, and I will be their God. I, the LORD, have spoken."

In another vision the LORD showed me the High Priest Joshua standing before the angel of the LORD. And there beside Joshua stood Satan, ready to bring an accusation against him.

Joshua was standing there, wearing filthy clothes.

He commanded the attendants to put a clean turban on Joshua's head. They did so, and then they put the new clothes on him while the angel of the LORD stood there.

What, then, was the purpose of the Law? It was added in order to show what wrongdoing is, and it was meant to last until the coming of Abraham's descendant, to whom the promise was made. The Law was handed down by angels, with a man acting as a go-between.

For Christ did not go into a Holy Place made by human hands, which was a copy of the real one. He went into heaven itself, where he now appears on our behalf in the presence of God.

You have not come, as the people of Israel came, to what you can feel, to Mount Sinai with its blazing fire, the darkness and the gloom, the storm,

because they could not bear the order which said, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death."

Instead, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, with its thousands of angels.

You have come to Jesus, who arranged the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that promises much better things than does the blood of Abel.