³⁶ He let you hear his voice from heaven so he could instruct you. He let you see his great fire here on earth so he could speak to you from it.

¹⁹ As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply.

⁹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, Moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak with you. Then they will always trust you.”

Moses told the Lord what the people had said.

³³ Has any nation ever heard the voice of God^[a] speaking from fire—as you did—and survived?

²⁵ Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven!

¹⁸ When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear.

¹⁹ And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!”

²⁰ “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!”

²¹ As the people stood in the distance, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.

Proper Use of Altars

²² And the Lord said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: You saw for yourselves that I spoke to you from heaven.

¹⁸ You have not come to a physical mountain,^[a] to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai.

¹⁶ And the glory of the Lord settled down on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud.