8 You provoked the Lord at Horeb, and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenantv the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat food or drink water. 10 On the day of the assembly the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger.w The exact words were on them, which the Lord spoke to you from the fire on the mountain.x 11 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, at the end of the forty days and forty nights.

12 “The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go down immediately from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast image for themselves.’a 13 The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name under heaven.b Then I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’

15 “So I went back down the mountain, while it was blazing with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 16 I saw how you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made a calf image for yourselves. You had quickly turned from the way the Lord had commanded for you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands, shattering them before your eyes.c 18 I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him. 19 I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you,d because he was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion.e 20 The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. But I prayed for Aaron at that time also.