There is a third version as well in Deuteronomy 5:6-21.

It is very similar to the one in Exodus 20, but there are some significant differences.  e.g. the command to remember the sabbath is linked to the exodus "...so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt..."  So it is justice-oriented rather than creation-oriented as in Exodus.

And according to Deuteronomy, this is what was written on the first set of tablets, not the replacement set.  It does tell in Deuteronomy 10 about the second set, but does not give the actual wording.  Just that it was the same as on the first set. 

Makes you wonder just what was really on those tablets.

Better practice what you preach on careful reading Acumen.  The list in Deuteronomy 5 were the first 10, supposedly the same as the list in Exodus 20.  Note Deut. 5:4  "Then the LORD spoke with you face to face out of the mountain, out of the fire.." just as in Exodus 20:18. 

The second 10 are mentioned but not listed in Deuteronomy 10. 

The second 10 are listed in Exodus 34.  Note the preamble in Exodus 34:1-4.  These are clearly the second set of tablets, unlike those in Exodus  20 and Deuteronomy 5 which are both clearly the commandments given in God's own voice from Mt. Sinai and written on the first set of tablets. 


But are they like the first ones?  No mention of honouring one's parents, or abstaining from murder, adultery, theft, false witness or covetousness.  Instead, many commands not listed in either Exodus 20 or Deut. 5 such as :

make no covenant with the inhabitants of Canaan and refrain from intermarriage with them
keep the festival of unleavened bread
devote the firstborn to the LORD (sacrifice the first-born of clean animals; redeem the first-born of humans and of unclean animals)
observe the three annual festivals
don't add leaven to a sacrifice
bring your firstfruits to the LORD
do not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

As far as I can see the only commands repeated from Exodus 20 are the prohibition on making idols and the observance of the seventh day as a sabbath. 


Some transcript. 

Good question.  But you don't get to change the text to say these are not the words written on the first set of tablets, because the text of Deuteronomy says they are.  Read both Deuteronomy 5 and Deuteronomy 10 and you cannot avoid the fact that in Deuteronomy 5 the author is speaking of the 1st set of tablets--the ones Moses broke.  Read Deuteronomy 9 where he tells of breaking them (Deut. 9:17)   Then he speaks in chapter 10 of making the second set.

Sorry if the text of scripture causes you problems, but solving the problem by changing the text is out of the question.


True, yet although this generation was not at Horeb (Sinai) look at how Moses introduces the commandments in Deuteronomy 5. 

The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.  Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us who are all of us here alive today.  The LORD spoke with you face-to-face at the mountain. 


Sure there is.  Exodus 34: 10-27  Earlier in the chapter, he makes the second set of tablets. 



 
You can't.  That is the point.  The ten commandments of Exodus 34 are very different from those of Exodus 20.  Only on two points do they coincide. 

You shall not make cast idols (v. 17) &
Six days shall you work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and harvest time, you shall rest.  (v. 21)

The other eight are all different. 

But according to the author of Exodus, this is what was written on the second set of tablets. 


Those in Deuteronomy 5 are the ones written on the first set of tablets.  What was written on the second set of tablets is not specified.  All it says is:

Then [the LORD] wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of assembly.  Deut. 10:4

Show me where what I am saying differs from the text of Exodus and Deuteronomy. 



Assuming you mean Deuteronomy, quite right.  It is different from Exodus 20 and very different from Exodus 34.  There is no altering that fact. 


The point is that what makes sense to you is not what the text says. 



Right, and that is how Jews understand it to this day.  The covenant was made with them as if they themselves were at Sinai along with their  ancestors. 



No, it is you that is having problems with the text.  You want it to make sense.  And in order to have it make sense, you insist that the commandments in Exodus 34 are not those written on the second set of tablets when the text says they were and that the commandments of Deut. 5 could not have been written on the first set of tablets although the text clearly says they were. 

I am only pointing out what the text says.   

Interpretation must stick to what the text actually says, whether it makes sense or not.  You don't get to change the text because you have trouble making sense of it as it is. 

Your problem is that you are trying to impose your sense of rationality on texts which defy a rational interpretation. 

Of course there is a totally different version of the 10 commandments in Exodus 34. I suggest rereading it. Especially verse 28 if you still want to claim that the list isn't about the 10 commandments ...

To make it easier, here is the chapter:

Exodus 34:10 Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. [a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

 15 "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

 17 "Do not make cast idols.

 18 "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

 19 "The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.
      "No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

 21 "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

 22 "Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.

 25 "Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.

 26 "Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.
      "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

 27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." 28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Please do excuse me for framing it in my own words ... I also hadn't read gluadys' post at the time.

So, what's your justification for these two radically different sets of 10 commandments? Because you can't deny that both sets are right there in Exodus 20 and 34, can you?

I agree with Acumen.  Deuteronomy is simply Moses giving the Law a second time to the next generation of Israelites as they were about to enter the promised land.  He is giving them a reminder of how God expected them to live in the land he had promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20 are the same commandments, and they are the Ten Commandments God gave to the people of Israel at Sinai.

In Exodus 34 the LORD is meeting with Moses, not the people of Israel.  They are about to leave the Desert of Sinai and Moses wants encouragement from the LORD, he wants to see His Glory and be assured the LORD will go before them.  The LORD has him chisel out two stone tablets on which God promises to write the same Ten Commandments he gave Israel at Mount Sinai.  Then God told Moses he is making a covenant with Moses and promises to show wonders before Moses' people.  God then reiterates to Moses what he expects of him as leader of Israel.  The next verses are not another list of Ten Commandments, but instructions to Moses that are in accordance (agreement, conformity) with the covenant.  Moses is told to write them down.  However, it was during the forty days and forty nights Moses was in the presence of the LORD that the LORD wrote the words of the original ten commandments on the tablets of stone Moses carved out.

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.'"  Exodus 34:1

"Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.'"  Exodus 34:27

"And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou didst break.'" (JPS)

"And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.'"  (JPS)

Actually you are disagreeing with Acumen as he was trying to say the commandments in Deut. 5 were those on the second set of tablets.  But you are agreeing that Moses is repeating the words said in Exodus 20. 


Right, except of course they are not exactly the same in detail, but they are basically the same set of commandments. 


True, but he was alone with the LORD when the first set of tablets was made as well. Remember that the people were afraid when the LORD spoke to them directly.  So they sent Moses to speak with him alone.  This is stated in both Exodus 20: 21 and Deut. 5: 23-27.

It was Moses taking 40 days alone with God while the commandments were written on the first tablets that led to the Israelites assuming he was dead and making the golden calf to be their god.  And that led to Moses breaking the first set of tablets and the need for a second set.


 
No, they are instructions to all of Israel.  And the LORD describes them as the covenant he is making "with you and with Israel." v. 27  It was not Moses alone who was to keep the sabbath or observe the festivals, or to bring the first fruits to God.  And in vs. 28 they are named "the ten commandments". 

What I'm saying is that good exegesis requires the reader to limit assumptions that tends to make a mess out of the text, which is something I believe you and Marc are not doing.  I readily admit that this issue of God giving Moses two sets of commandments is a little confusing, but instead of presuming that the author of the text is intelligent and reasonable, you feel more comfortable presuming that he contradicts himself on something any author would have rightly seen.  It makes no sense why an author would call the second set of commandments like the first, when there is a drastic difference between them.  Your explanation is "it is what it is," which you feel comfortable with.  Good exegesis isn't lazy.  If something doesn't make sense, we need not twist the text to meet our preconceptions, but we should critically examine the text to see if there is something we're missing.   I prefer to give the author the benefit of the doubt that I would expect anyone to give me if I had authored a text.


 


Where have I changed the text?




Apparently I do.  Thanks for the correction.

Yet that doesn't hold up:

27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." 28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

'these words' obviously refer to what he just proclaimed prior to this.