In the future ¹  the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; ²  it will be more prominent than other hills. ³  People will stream to it.

Turning to me, the messenger then said, “Cry out that the Lord who rules over all says, ‘I am very much moved ¹  for Jerusalem and for Zion.

just as it is written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble and a rock that will make them fall, ¹  yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ² 

¹ When ²  they journeyed from Elim, the entire company ³  of Israelites came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their exodus ⁴  from the land of Egypt.

No hand will touch him ¹  – but he will surely be stoned or shot through, whether a beast or a human being; ²  he must not live.’ When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast they may ³  go up on the mountain.”

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed ²  in coming down ³  from the mountain, they ⁴  gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Get up, ⁵  make us gods ⁶  that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, ⁷  the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what ⁸  has become of him!”

Get up now, ¹  resume your journey, heading for ²  the Amorite hill country, to all its areas ³  including the arid country, ⁴  the highlands, the Shephelah, ⁵  the Negev, ⁶  and the coastal plain – all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates.

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

Previously the Horites ¹  lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.) ² 

You ¹  stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he ²  said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. ³  Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children.”

The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. ¹  Then he inscribed the words ²  on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger ¹  of God, and on them was everything ²  he ³  said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly.

As for your sinful thing ¹  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ²  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

The Lord ¹  then wrote on the tablets the same words, ²  the ten commandments, ³  which he ⁴  had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he ⁵  gave them to me.

This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ¹  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.”

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ¹  you must not chop down its trees, ²  for you may eat fruit ³  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁴ 

Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they buried him in Gibeah in the hill country of Ephraim, where his son Phinehas had been assigned land. ¹ 

Now Gideon sent messengers throughout the Ephraimite hill country who announced, “Go down and head off the Midianites. ¹  Take control of the fords of the streams ²  all the way to Beth Barah and the Jordan River.” ³  When all the Ephraimites had assembled, ⁴  they took control of the fords ⁵  all the way to Beth Barah and the Jordan River.

The Danites sent out from their whole tribe five representatives, ¹  capable men ²  from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. They said to them, “Go, explore the land.” They came to the Ephraimite hill country and spent the night at Micah’s house. ³ 

The Levite ¹  said to him, “We are traveling from Bethlehem ²  in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. ³  But no one has invited me into their home.