1. The Lord spoke to Moses: Go! You and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt are to go up from here to the land about which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: I will give it to your descendants.
2. Driving out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, I will send an angel before you
3. to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I myself will not go up in your company, because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise I might consume you on the way.
4. When the people heard this painful news, they mourned, and no one wore any ornaments.
5. The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the Israelites: You are a stiff-necked people. Were I to go up in your company even for a moment, I would destroy you. Now off with your ornaments! Let me think what to do with you.
6. So, from Mount Horeb onward, the Israelites stripped off their ornaments.
7. Moses used to pitch a tent outside the camp at some distance. It was called the tent of meeting. Anyone who wished to consult the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.
8. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, the people would all rise and stand at the entrance of their own tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.