Exodus 32–34

The Golden Calf

32When the people saw that Moses ^vdelayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ^w“Up, make us gods who shall ^xgo before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ²So Aaron said to them, “Take off the ^yrings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ³So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. ^4zAnd he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden¹ calf. And they said, ^a“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron ^bmade a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” ⁶And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And ^cthe people sat down to eat and drink and rose up ^dto play.

⁷And the Lord said to Moses, ^e“Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have ^fcorrupted themselves. ⁸They have turned aside quickly out of the way that ^gI commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” ⁹And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, ^hit is a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰Now therefore ⁱlet me alone, that ^jmy wrath may burn hot against them and ^kI may consume them, in order that ^lI may make a great nation of you.”

¹¹But ^mMoses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹²ⁿWhy should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and ^orelent from this disaster against your people. ¹³Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you ^pswore by your own self, and said to them, ^q‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” ¹⁴And the Lord ^rrelented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

¹⁵Then ^sMoses turned and went down from the mountain with the ^ttwo tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. ^16uThe tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. ¹⁷When ^vJoshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” ¹⁸But he said, “It is not the sound of ^wshouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” ¹⁹And as soon as he came near the camp and ^xsaw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

²¹And Moses said to Aaron, ^y“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” ²²And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. ^zYou know the people, that they are set on evil. ²³For ^athey said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ ²⁴So ^bI said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

²⁵And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, ^cto the derision of their enemies), ²⁶then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. ²⁷And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you ^dkill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’ ” ²⁸And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. ²⁹And Moses said, “Today you have been ^eordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

³⁰The next day Moses said to the people, ^f“You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; ^gperhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, ^fthis people has sinned a great sin. They have ^hmade for themselves gods of gold. ³²But now, if ⁱyou will forgive their sin—but if not, please ^jblot me out of ^kyour book that you have written.” ³³But the Lord said to Moses, ^l“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. ^34mBut now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; ⁿbehold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

³⁵Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

The Command to Leave Sinai

33The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you ^oand the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To ^pyour offspring I will give it.’ ²I will send an ^qangel before you, ^rand I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ^3sGo up to a land flowing with milk and honey; ^tbut I will not go up among you, ^ulest I consume you on the way, for you are a ^vstiff-necked people.”

⁴When the people heard this disastrous word, they ^wmourned, and ^xno one put on his ornaments. ⁵For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a ^vstiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would ^yconsume you. So now ^xtake off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” ⁶Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

The Tent of Meeting

⁷Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and ^zhe called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who ^asought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. ⁸Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and ^beach would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. ⁹When Moses entered the tent, the ^cpillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord¹ would speak with Moses. ¹⁰And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. ¹¹Thus ^dthe Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his ^eassistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

Moses’ Intercession

¹²Moses said to the Lord, “See, ^fyou say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ^g‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ ¹³Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please ^hshow me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is ⁱyour people.” ¹⁴And he said, ^j“My presence will go with you, and ^kI will give you rest.” ¹⁵And he said to him, ^l“If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. ¹⁶For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? ^mIs it not in your going with us, ⁿso that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, ^ofor you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” ¹⁸Moses said, “Please ^pshow me your glory.” ¹⁹And he said, ^q“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And ^rI will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. ²⁰But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for ^sman shall not see me and live.” ²¹And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, ²²and while my glory passes by I will put you in a ^tcleft of the rock, and I will ^ucover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall ^vnot be seen.”

Moses Makes New Tablets

34The Lord said to Moses, ^w“Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, ^xand I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, ^ywhich you broke. ²Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me ^zon the top of the mountain. ³No ^aone shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” ⁴So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. ⁵The Lord ^bdescended in the cloud and stood with him there, and ^cproclaimed the name of the Lord. ⁶The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ^d“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and ^egracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast ^flove and faithfulness, ^7gkeeping steadfast love for thousands,^{1 h}forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but ⁱ…