Deuteronomy 9:8–21

⁸You provoked the Lord at Horeb, and He was angry enough with you to destroy you. ⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant ^sthe Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. ¹⁰On the day of the assembly the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger. ^tThe exact words were on them, which the Lord spoke to you from the fire on the mountain. ^u11The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, at the end of the 40 days and 40 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.’ ^v13The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴Leave Me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name under heaven. ^wThen 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. ¹⁶I 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. ¹⁷So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands, shattering them before your eyes. ^x18Then I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights; I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and provoking Him to anger. ¹⁹I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you, ^ybecause He was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion. ^z20The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. But I prayed for Aaron at that time also. ²¹I took the sinful calf you had made, burned it up, and crushed it, thoroughly grinding it to powder as fine as dust. Then I threw it into the stream that came down from the mountain. ^a