13. “The lord also said to me, ‘I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are.
14. Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are.’
15. “So while the mountain was blazing with fire I turned and came down, holding in my hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant.
16. There below me I could see that you had sinned against the lord your God. You had melted gold and made a calf idol for yourselves. How quickly you had turned away from the path the lord had commanded you to follow!
17. So I took the stone tablets and threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes.
18. “Then, as before, I threw myself down before the lord for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the lord hated, provoking him to anger.
19. I feared that the furious anger of the lord, which turned him against you, would drive him to destroy you. But again he listened to me.