4. He received them from their hand, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
5. When Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow will be a feast to the Lord.”
6. So they 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.
7. The Lord spoke to Moses, “Go, and get down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
8. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molded calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, which has brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ ”
9. Then the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and certainly, it is a stiff-necked people.
10. Now therefore let Me alone, so that My wrath may burn against them and I may destroy them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
11. But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, why does Your wrath burn against Your people, whom You have brought forth from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12. Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath and relent of this harm against Your people.
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.