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?

you must set apart for yourselves three cities ¹  in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.

you may bring her back to your house. She must shave her head, ¹  trim her nails,

When evening arrives he must wash himself with water and then at sunset he may reenter the camp.

for both of you ¹  rebelled against me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the desert of Zin when you did not show me proper respect ²  among the Israelites.

To the Reubenites and Gadites I allocated the territory extending from Gilead as far as Wadi Arnon (the exact middle of the wadi was a boundary) all the way to the Wadi Jabbok, the Ammonite border.

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 

Then, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was ablaze, all your tribal leaders and elders approached me.

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?

They did not see ¹  the awesome deeds he performed ²  in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh king of Egypt and his whole land,

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.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza ¹  and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin ²  forever – it must never be rebuilt again.

If the owner ¹  does not live ²  near you or you do not know who the owner is, ³  then you must corral the animal ⁴  at your house and let it stay with you until the owner looks for it; then you must return it to him.

If there is someone among you who is impure because of some nocturnal emission, ¹  he must leave the camp; he may not reenter it immediately.