Due to their idolatry with the golden calf, the Israelites immediately break the covenant that God makes with them, due to their idolatry with the golden calf.
On the orders of God, about three thousands men are killed. Then Moses returns to the Lord and as a mediator, prays on behalf of the people. This eventually leads to the renewing of the covenant. Exodus 34 verse 10 to 28.
Again the Lord writes the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, which Moses had to carve out.
Moses descends the mountain with the new tablets. His face is shining due to his meeting with the Lord.
The covenant has been restored and maintained by the grace of the Lord; through the atonement that He gives.
The people appear incapable of keeping the law, despite their good intentions.
The summary of the law is: Love God above all and your neighbour as yourself.
Law and Grace
In the New Testament the apostle Paul writes several times about law and grace.
For example Romans chapters 1 to 8.
Romans 7 verse 10 to 13:
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Galatians 3 verse 13 to 19:
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say: “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
The 'offspring' is Jesus Christ. He has fully fulfilled the law in our place, and He bore our punishment.
The psalm prophesy about Him:
Psalm 40 verse 7 and 8:
Then I said: Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.
Psalm 119 verse 97 and 98:
Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
Faith in Jesus Christ changes the heart. The Holy Spirit writes Gods law in the heart of the believer.
Jeremiah 31 verse 33.
Galatians 5 verse 13 to 26:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.