Top of Page
Page Style
the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from their hands, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool into an idol cast in the image of a calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be festival to the Lord.” 6 So the people rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward the people sat down to eat and drink, and then they got up to indulge in revelry.
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! For your people, whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them and have made themselves an idol shaped in the image of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel who have brought you up from the land of Egypt’!”
9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave Me alone, so that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses pleaded with the Lord his God. “O Lord, he said, “why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent the He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger, and relent from bringing this disaster on Your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore an oath by Your very self, declaring, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have promised, I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever’.” 14 So the Lord relented from the disaster He threatened to bring against His people.
15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. The tablets were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God’s own writing, engraved on the tablets.
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”
18 But Moses replied,
“It is not the noise made by the victorious,
nor is it the sound of a cry of defeat;
it is the sound of singing that I hear.”
19 As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned hot and he threw the tablets from his hands, smashing them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 Then he took the calf that they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder. He scattered the powder on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
21 Then Moses asked Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have led them into such a great sin?”
22 “Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot,” Aaron answered. “You know these people, and how prone they are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him’. 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold, take it off,’ and they gave it to me. When I threw it in the fire, out came this calf!”
25 Moses saw that the people were running wild, and that Aaron had let them get out of control, and that because of this incident they would become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all of the Levites rallied to him. 27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Each man is to fasten his sword to his side; then go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbour’.” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell dead that day. 29 Afterwards Moses said, “Today you have been consecrated to the Lord, since each man went at the cost of a son or a brother, and so He has blessed you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 Yet now, if You will, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book You have written.”
33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot out of My book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you; and behold, My Angel will go before you. However, when the day comes for punishment, I will hold them accountable for their sin.”
35 And the Lord inflicted a plague on the people because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.