3. So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiselled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands.
4. The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me.
5. Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.
6. (The Israelites travelled from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him as priest.
7. From there they travelled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water.
8. At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.
9. That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God told them.)
10. Now I had stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you.
11. ‘Go,’ the Lord said to me, ‘and lead the people on their way, so that they may enter and possess the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.’
12. And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13. and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
14. To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
15. Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations – as it is today.
16. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.