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.
20. The lord was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him, too. But I prayed for Aaron, and the lord spared him.
21. I took your sin—the calf you had made—and I melted it down in the fire and ground it into fine dust. Then I threw the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.
22. “You also made the lord angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah.
23. And at Kadesh-barnea the lord sent you out with this command: ‘Go up and take over the land I have given you.’ But you rebelled against the command of the lord your God and refused to put your trust in him or obey him.
24. Yes, you have been rebelling against the lord as long as I have known you.
25. “That is why I threw myself down before the lord for forty days and nights—for the lord said he would destroy you.