Exodus Chapter 32    

¹Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, “Come, make a god that will go before us, for 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.”
 

²Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden rings that are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters, and bring them to me.”
  ³All the people broke off the golden rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
  ⁴He received what they handed him and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into a cast metal calf. And they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
 

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow will be a feast to Yahweh.”
  ⁶They rose up early on the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
 

⁷And Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people who you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves!
  ⁸They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast metal calf and have bowed down to it^a and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
  ⁹Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.
  ¹⁰Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and that I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation.”
 

¹¹Moses soothed the face of Yahweh his God and said, “O Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
  ¹²Why should the Egyptians say, yes, say, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath and change your mind about this evil against your people.
  ¹³Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, ‘I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they will inherit it forever.’”
  ¹⁴So Yahweh changed his mind about the evil that he said he would do to his people.
 

¹⁵Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.
  ¹⁶The tablets were made by God and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets.
 

¹⁷When Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “The sound of war is in the camp!”
 

¹⁸But Moses said, “It is not the sound of victory, nor is it the sound of defeat, but it is the sound singing that I hear.”
 

¹⁹And when he drew near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
  ²⁰He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire, ground it to powder and scattered it on the surface of the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.
 

²¹Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you have brought on them such a great sin?”
 

²²Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord grow hot. You yourself know the people, that they are set on evil.
  ²³For they said to me, ‘Make us a god who will go before us, for 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.’
  ²⁴So I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off,’ so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
 

²⁵When Moses saw that the people had broken loose, (for Aaron had let them loose to be whispered about among their enemies),
  ²⁶then Moses stood at the entrance of the camp and said, “Whoever is on Yahweh’s side, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him.
  ²⁷He said to them, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’”
  ²⁸The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men.
  ²⁹Moses said, “Today you have been dedicated to Yahweh, for every man was against his son and against his brother, and he has bestowed on you a blessing this day.”
 

³⁰And on the next day Moses said to the people, “You, you have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to Yahweh. Perhaps I will be able to make atonement for your sin.”
 

³¹So Moses returned to Yahweh and said, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold.
  ³²Yet now, if you would only forgive their sin…! But if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
 

³³Yahweh said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
  ³⁴Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke to you about. Behold, my angel will go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”
  ³⁵And Yahweh struck the people with a plague because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.