14. Let Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”
15. So I returned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
16. I looked, and indeed, you had sinned against the Lord your God and had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned aside out of the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17. I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18. I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all your sins which you committed, doing what was wicked in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.
19. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also.
20. The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time.
21. I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, and ground it very small until it was as small as dust. Then I threw the dust into the brook that descended down from the mountain.
22. Also at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.
23. Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or listen to His voice.
24. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.