13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.’ ”
14. Then the Lord relented of the harm which He said He would do to His people.
15. Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of testimony in his hand. The tablets were written on both their sides. They were written on one side and on the other.
16. The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets.
17. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of war in the camp.”
18. But he said: “It is not the sound of those who shout for victory,nor is it the sound of those who cry because of being overcome,but I hear the sound of singing.”
19. As soon as he came near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses’ anger burned, so he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the bottom of the mountain.
20. Then he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.
21. Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin upon them?”
22. Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn. You know that the people are set on evil.
23. For they said to me, ‘Make a god for us which will go before us, for this Moses, the man that brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
24. I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me, and then I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.’ ”
25. Now when Moses saw the people were in a frenzy, for Aaron had let them get completely out of control, causing derision from their enemies,
26. then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered themselves together around him.
27. He said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Every man fasten his sword on his side, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’ ”
28. The Levites did according to the word of Moses, and about three thousand men of the people died that day.
29. For Moses had said, “Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, that He may bestow a blessing on you this day, for every man opposes his son and his brother.”