Having described how to build the ark for God to sit on and the table for God's food to sit on, it was time to describe the actual tabernacle. The tabernacle, God said, should be made from ten fine linen curtains of blue, purple, and scarlet, with cherubims stitched in them, made by someone who really knew how to embroider cherubims. If the curtains just had some lame stick figures with wings, God was going to be seriously pissed, in a smitey sort of way.

And God told Moses that he wanted to live closer to the Israelites, because he was tired of getting loaded on all the booze they were offering him and then having to dodge the cops while driving all the way back up to the top of the mountain to crash for the night. Unfortunately, he felt the tents the Israelites were living in were shitholes, so he wanted them to build him a house of his own.

In my continuing efforts to sell out to "the man" (note: so far, "the man" doesn't seem very interested), I've spent the better part of the evening attempting to integrate Facebook Connect into this website. If I've done everything correctly, you should be able to link your Facebook account to this website, thus reducing the number of different account names and passwords you have to remember by at least 1. If I screwed something up, this post will simply be a reminder to you that good intentions do not always equal good results.

And God told Moses to go fetch his buddies Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, along with the seventy elders of Israel, and bring them to the mountain so they could worship God from a distance. Moses could go up and hang out with God up close and personal, but everyone else had to stay back, presumably because God had recently developed a large pimple on his nose that he didn't want anyone to see.

Don't go around telling people shit happened when shit didn't happen. If some dude asks you to lie for him on the stand at his trial, don't do it.

Don't say shit happened just because everyone else is saying shit happened when you know shit didn't happen, especially if you're a witness in a lawsuit.

Don't say shit happened when you know shit didn't happen just because the guy who says shit happened to him is poor and you feel sorry for him.

If a man steals a sheep or an ox and then kills or sells it before he's caught, he has to pay the original owner of said sheep or ox thusly: 5 oxen for an ox and 4 sheep for a sheep. If the thief is caught before he gets a chance to sell or kill the animal, he only has to pay back double what he stole.

If you catch a thief breaking into your house at night, it's perfectly legal to beat him to death. If, however, you catch him after sunrise and beat him to death, you'll also be put to death. So, if you catch a thief and decide to beat him up, make sure he dies before sunrise.

After God had given Moses the Ten Commandments (plus 4 bonus commandments!), he proceeded to outline a whole bunch of other rules for the Israelites to follow as well:

1. Care and feeding of Hebrew slaves:

   Anyone who buys a Hebrew as a slave can only keep him for 6 years. In the seventh year, the slave has to be let go.

After Moses got back to the top of the mountain, God started laying down the law, thusly:

1. I am your God, and I saved your whiny asses from slavery in Egypt. Don't even think about worshiping any other gods.
   

Three months after the escape from Egypt, the Israelites came to the wilderness at Sinai and camped before a mountain where God was hanging out. God told Moses to remind the Israelites about all the great stuff he (God) had done for them, and also to tell them that he owned the whole planet, and not just the patch of desert they had been wandering around all this time. God further said that if the Israelites did everything he told them, they would totally be his favorite people, and he would make them into a kingdom of priests and holy men.

Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, was serving as the priest of Midian, affectionately known as the "Ozarks of the Middle East", when he heard about all the great stuff God was doing for Moses and his people, what with the rescuing them from Egypt and not letting them starve to death and all. Wanting to get in on some of this manna and water-from-a-stone stuff, Jethro decided to take Moses' wife Zipporah (which means "happy firestarter") and his two sons to the wilderness where Moses was camped out.