17. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war within the camp.”
18. But Moses said: “It is not the voice of a shout of victory, nor is it the voice of crying from defeat, but I hear the sound of singing.”
19. Then it happened, as soon as Moses came near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and his anger burned hot. So he threw the tablets out of his hands, and smashed them at the foot of the mountain.
20. Then he took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the surface of the water and made Bnei-Yisrael drink it.
21. Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, to make you bring such a great sin upon them?”
22. Aaron said, “Don’t be angry, my lord! You know these people yourself, and how they are set on evil.
23. They said to me, ‘Make gods for us, to go before us! As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him.’
24. So I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!”