The Covenant, like the initial tablets, were broken before they had any life to themselves. Perhaps by breaking the tablets, Moses destroyed whatever was left of the initial Covenant. If so, God is actually quite patient with Moses for destroying the tablets.
We need new tablets. We need a new Covenant.
God tells Moses to chisel out two blank tablets and go up the mountain. The mountain is again super-holy and no one else is allowed be on the mountain and flocks are not even allowed to feed in front of it. God plans to make new tablets that have the same writing as the original tablets.
Moses begs for forgiveness on behalf of the people and God's response is to make a Covenant. This suggests that the initial Covenant was in breach by the Golden Calf and, like the tablets, must be remade.
God's offer: I will drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, allowing you to take possession.
God makes Moses write 10 things. Is Moses writing on these new tablets (he has a chisel)? Is Moses writing in the original Book of the Covenant (from Ex. 23)? I cannot discern from the text. These 10 things are:
1. you shall destroy the altars, idols, and Asherah poles of Canaan (v. 13)
2. for you shall worship no other god (purpose of prior command) (v. 14)
3. you shall not make no molten gods (v. 17)
4. you shall keep the Feast of Unleavened bread (v. 18; v. 23)
6. six days to work you shall rest on the seventh day, including during the plowing and harvest season (v. 21)
7. you shall observe the Feast of Weeks and Feast of Ingathering (i.e., harvest feasts) (v. 22-23)
8. you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven nor leave Passover sacrifice until morning (v. 25)
9. The first-fruits of your shall you bring to the house of they Lord (i.e., tithing) (v. 26)
10. you shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk (v. 26)
These are not the Ten Commandments that everyone thinks of, but there 10 and Moses is required to write them down. They appear to be high points from the general commandment and code list from before.
Since the focus of these is about refraining from pagan practices, perhaps boiling a kid (goat, not human) in the mother's milk was a pagan practice.
I also suspect that God making Moses (1) chisel out new tablets and (2) write this new list is Moses' punishment for breaking the original tablets.
Finally, Moses back down the mountain after a second 40 days and his face is glowing. This would give credibility that it he was with God, and not just making all this stuff up.
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