10. Let me alone, then, that my anger may burn against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.
11. But Moses implored the Lord, his God, saying, “Why, O Lord, should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand?
12. Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning wrath; change your mind about punishing your people.
13. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.’”
14. So the Lord changed his mind about the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.
15. Moses then turned and came down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, front and back.
16. The tablets were made by God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
17. Now, when Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “That sounds like a battle in the camp.”
18. But Moses answered,“It is not the noise of victory,it is not the noise of defeat;the sound I hear is singing.”
19. As he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. Then Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets down and broke them on the base of the mountain.
20. Taking the calf they had made, he burned it in the fire and then ground it down to powder, which he scattered on the water and made the Israelites drink.
21. Moses asked Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you should lead them into a grave sin?”
22. Aaron replied, “Do not let my lord be angry. You know how the people are prone to evil.
23. They said to me, ‘Make us a god to go before us; as for this man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’