February 8: Exodus 22:16 – Exodus 24:18

Laws about Social Injustice – Exodus 22

• God gives the Hebrew people laws about social justice, including seduction of virgins, sacrificing to other gods, treatment of widows and orphans, consecration of the firstborn, lying, treatment of others' livestock, and mistreatment of the poor and the sojourner.

Laws about the Sabbath and Festivals – Exodus 23

• God gives the Hebrew people laws about the Sabbath and festivals, including letting fields lie fallow every seventh year, resting on the Sabbath, keeping the feasts (Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Harvest, and Feast of Ingathering), and giving the first fruits to the Lord.

Conquest of Canaan Promised

• God tells the Hebrews that He will send an angel before them, leading them to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites. They are not to bow down to their gods, but to overthrow them, and God will throw into confusion all the people that come against them.
• God will send His terror before the Hebrews—hornets will drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites in one year, driving them out until the people of Israel inhabit all their land. God will set their border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates. They are not to bow to their gods, and He will drive these peoples from the land so they will not be a snare.

The Covenant Confirmed – Exodus 24

• God calls Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders to Him to worship, although Moses is the only one permitted to come near to the Lord. Moses goes to the people and conveys the Lord's instructions to them, and they agree that they will follow His rules.
• Moses writes down God's words and builds an altar to Him at the foot of the mountain. Young men offer burnt offerings and sacrifices. Moses reads the book of the covenant to the people (which they agree to be obedient to), then takes the blood in the basins (from the sacrifices) and throws half on the altar and the rest on the people.
• Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the elders go up the mountain, where they behold God and eat and drink with Him. The Lord tells Moses to come up and wait there so God can give him tablets of stone with the laws and commandments on them. Moses takes his assistant, Joshua, and does as instructed.
• The glory of the Lord dwells on Mount Sinai, and a cloud overtakes it for six days. On the seventh day, God calls out to Moses and the glory of the Lord appears to him. Moses enters the cloud and stays on the mountain for forty days and nights.