As Aaron spoke to the whole community of the Israelites and they looked toward the desert, there the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud,

The whole community of the Israelites traveled on their journey from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. Now there was no water for the people to drink.

and her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (for Moses had said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land”),

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camping by the mountain of God.

Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people of Israel:

and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates.

The Lord said to Moses: “Thus you will tell the Israelites: ‘You yourselves have seen that I have spoken with you from heaven.

If his master gave him a wife, and she bore sons or daughters, the wife and the children will belong to her master, and he will go out by himself.

But if the servant should declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’

For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you must cease, in order that your ox and your donkey may rest and that your female servant’s son and any hired help may refresh themselves.

“Tell the Israelites to take an offering for me; from every person motivated by a willing heart you are to receive my offering.

“You are to command the Israelites that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, so that the lamps will burn regularly.

You are to engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel with the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a seal; you are to have them set in gold filigree settings.

Aaron will bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of decision over his heart when he goes into the holy place, for a memorial before the Lord continually.

“You are to clothe them – your brother Aaron and his sons with him – and anoint them and ordain them and set them apart as holy, so that they may minister as my priests.

“Now this is what you are to do for them to consecrate them so that they may minister as my priests. Take a young bull and two rams without blemish;

“You are to present the bull at the front of the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons are to put their hands on the head of the bull.

You are to put all these in Aaron’s hands and in his sons’ hands, and you are to wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.

You are to sanctify the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution, which were waved and lifted up as a contribution from the ram of consecration, from what belongs to Aaron and to his sons.