8. Moses quickly bowed down to the ground and worshipped.
9. He said, “Lord, if you really are pleased with me, I ask you to go with us. These people are stubborn, but forgive our evil and our sin, and accept us as your own people.”
10. The Lord said to Moses, “I now make a covenant with the people of Israel. In their presence I will do great things such as have never been done anywhere on earth among any of the nations. All the people will see what great things I, the Lord, can do, because I am going to do an awesome thing for you.
11. Obey the laws that I am giving you today. I will drive out the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as you advance.
12. Do not make any treaties with the people of the country into which you are going, because this could be a fatal trap for you.
13. Instead, tear down their altars, destroy their sacred pillars, and cut down the symbols of their goddess Asherah.
14. “Do not worship any other god, because I, the Lord, tolerate no rivals.
15. Do not make any treaties with the people of the country, because when they worship their pagan gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you to join them, and you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.
16. Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods.
17. “Do not make and worship gods of metal.
18. “Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I have commanded you, eat unleavened bread for seven days in the month of Abib, because it was in that month that you left Egypt.
19. “Every firstborn son and firstborn male domestic animal belongs to me,
20. but you are to buy back every firstborn donkey by offering a lamb in its place. If you do not buy it back, break its neck. Buy back every firstborn son.“No one is to appear before me without an offering.