18. “Then I fell down before Adonai like the first time, for 40 days and 40 nights. I did not eat bread or drink water—because of all your sin that you committed, doing evil in Adonai’s sight, provoking Him to anger.
19. For I was afraid of the fierce wrath and fury which Adonai bore toward you—to destroy you. But Adonai listened to me that time also.
20. Adonai was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
21. I took your sin—the calf you had made—and burned it in the fire. I crushed it, grinding it up so well that it was as fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the wadi flowing down from the mountain.
22. “Again at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked Adonai to wrath.
23. When Adonai sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of Adonai your God and didn’t believe Him or listen to His voice.
24. You have been rebellious against Adonai from the day that I knew you.
25. “So I threw myself down before Adonai those 40 days and 40 nights, because Adonai had said He would destroy you.
26. I prayed to Adonai and said, ‘O Lord, Adonai, do not destroy Your people—Your inheritance that You have redeemed through Your greatness and brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand.
27. Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people or to their wickedness or their sin.
28. Otherwise the land from which You brought us out may say, “Because Adonai was not able to bring them into the land that He spoke of to them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.”
29. Yet they are Your people—Your inheritance that You brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.’