The Lord spoke face to face with you at the mountain, from the middle of the fire.

Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it?

Then the Lord spoke to you from the middle of the fire; you heard speech but you could not see anything – only a voice was heard. ¹ 

Be very careful, ¹  then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.

From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words. ¹ 

But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the Lord our God we will die!

Who is there from the entire human race ¹  who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of the fire as we have, and has lived?

(I was standing between the Lord and you at that time to reveal to you the message ¹  of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain.) He said:

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.

You said, “The Lord our God has shown us his great glory ¹  and we have heard him speak from the middle of the fire. It is now clear to us ²  that God can speak to human beings and they can keep on living.

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.

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.”