In the desert the people grumbled, but God fed them with manna from heaven and water from the rock. After three months they reached Mount Sinai. There God offered a covenant: if they kept it, they would be His own treasured people. The people answered, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”
Amid thunder, fire and cloud, God gave the Ten Commandments. They begin with God's love: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The commandments were not a cage but the way for a freed people to stay free: free from false gods, from hatred and from greed.
While Moses was on the mountain, the people made a golden calf and worshiped it. Moses pleaded with God for them, and God forgave His people and renewed the covenant. Moses shows us intercession: praying for others, even when they have let God down.
God taught Israel how to worship Him. They made the Ark of the Covenant, a gold-covered chest holding the stone tablets, and the Tabernacle, a holy tent where God dwelt among His people. Priests offered sacrifices, and once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest asked forgiveness for the sins of all the people.
Israel's great prayer, the Shema, sums up the whole law: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Jesus called this the first and greatest commandment.
Because they would not trust God, the people wandered forty years in the desert. Yet God never left them: a pillar of cloud led them by day and a pillar of fire by night. At last, under Joshua, they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.