The Golden Calf
1 When the people saw that Moses vdelayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, w“Up, make us gods who shall xgo before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the yrings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 zAnd he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden1 calf. And they said, a“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron bmade a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And cthe people sat down to eat and drink and rose up dto play.
7 And the Lord said to Moses, e“Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have fcorrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that gI commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, hit is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore ilet me alone, that jmy wrath may burn hot against them and kI may consume them, in order that lI may make a great nation of you.”
11 But mMoses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 nWhy should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and orelent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you pswore by your own self, and said to them, q‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord rrelented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
15 Then sMoses turned and went down from the mountain with the ttwo tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 uThe tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When vJoshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of wshouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and xsaw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, y“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. zYou know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For athey said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So bI said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, cto the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you dkill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And Moses said, “Today you have been eordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, f“You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; gperhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, fthis people has sinned a great sin. They have hmade for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if iyou will forgive their sin—but if not, please jblot me out of kyour book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, l“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. 34 mBut now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; nbehold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”
35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.
Moses Makes New Tablets
1 The Lord said to Moses, w“Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, xand I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, ywhich you broke. 2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me zon the top of the mountain. 3 No aone shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord bdescended in the cloud and stood with him there, and cproclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, d“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and egracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast flove and faithfulness, 7 gkeeping steadfast love for thousands,1 hforgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but iwho will by no means clear the guilty, jvisiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly kbowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please llet the Lord go in the midst of us, for mit is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for nyour inheritance.”
The Covenant Renewed
10 And he said, “Behold, oI am making a covenant. Before all your people pI will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an qawesome thing that I will do with you.
11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, rI will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 sTake care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a tsnare in your midst. 13 You shall utear down their altars and vbreak their pillars and cut down their wAsherim 14 (for xyou shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 slest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they ywhore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and zyou are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of atheir daughters for your sons, and their daughters ywhore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
17 b“You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
18 c“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in dthe month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 eAll that open the womb are mine, all your male2 livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The ffirstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And gnone shall appear before me empty-handed.
21 h“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 iYou shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 jThree times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will kcast out nations before you and lenlarge your borders; mno one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
25 n“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, oor let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 pThe best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. qYou shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words rI have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 sSo he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he twrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.3
The Golden Calf
13 p“Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is ga stubborn people. 14 qLet me alone, that I may destroy them and rblot out their name from under heaven. And sI will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15 tSo I turned and came down from the mountain, and uthe mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And vI looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden1 calf. wYou had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 Then I xlay prostrate before the Lord yas before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, zin doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. aBut the Lord listened to me that time also. 20 And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then bI took the sinful thing, the calf that you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And I threw the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain.
17 They refused to obey fand were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.1 But you are a God ready to forgive, ggracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even hwhen they had made for themselves a golden2 calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ iand had committed great blasphemies, 19 you jin your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. kThe pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, knor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 lYou gave your good Spirit to instruct them mand did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 nForty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
