2. Aaron said to them, “Take off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.”
3. All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4. He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a moulded calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
5. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”
6. They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
7. The Lord spoke to Moses, “Go, get down; for your people, who you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!
8. They have turned away quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a moulded calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
9. The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.
10. Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation.”
11. Moses begged the Lord his God, and said, “The Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12. Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and turn away from this evil against your people.
13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
14. So The Lord turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people.
15. Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides. They were written on one side and on the other.
16. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
17. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is the noise of war in the camp.”