Exodus 33-35:29

This is an incredibly rich section of Exodus.  The Lord promises that Moses and the people will be led to a "land of milk and honey" in fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yet God tells Moses that He Himself will not accompany them, because they are such a "stiff-necked people" He might otherwise "exterminate them" along the way. I find that profoundly frightening. Yet Moses prevails upon God, Who seems to change His mind and agrees to accompany them. God attributes His change of mind to the fact that "you [Moses] have found favor with me and you are my intimate friend." Wow--how amazing to have God call you His intimate friend. And yet aren't we all called to that? I think so. But how do we get there? How do we make that highly personal journey? How can we have such a relationship with a God Who goes on to say "no man sees me and still lives"? The God Who  fears that He may exterminate His own people soon after tells Moses: The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin".  Incredibly beautiful and comforting words, words that soothe me in the night when I consider how short I have fallen of what He wants me to be and do. But God continues to Moses: yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness. The first part of the quoted passage sounds like the crux of Christ's message, but I don't know what to make of the second. Is it an admonition that we are part of a community and have responsibilities to others--that our relationship with God cannot be purely "vertical"? Or are we meant to take it more literally? Is it a truth that only Christ's sacrifice can undo?