Exodus 32–34

The People Make a Gold Calf

32The people saw that a long time had passed and Moses had not come down from the mountain. So they gathered around Aaron and said, “Moses led us out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him. Make us gods who will lead us.”

²Aaron said to the people, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, sons, and daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” ³So all the people took their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron. ⁴He took the gold from the people and formed it with a tool and made a statue of a calf. Then the people said, “Israel, these are your gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵When Aaron saw all this, he built an altar before the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a special feast to honor the Lord.” ⁶The people got up early the next morning and offered whole burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. They sat down to eat and drink, and then they got up and sinned sexually.

⁷Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down from this mountain, because your people, the people you brought out of the land of Egypt, have ruined themselves. ⁸They have quickly turned away from the things I commanded them to do. They have made for themselves a calf covered with gold, and they have worshiped it and offered sacrifices to it. They have said, ‘Israel, these are your gods who brought you out of Egypt.’ ”

⁹The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and I know that they are very stubborn. ¹⁰So now do not stop me. I am so angry with them that I am going to destroy them. Then I will make you and your descendants a great nation.”

¹¹But Moses begged the Lord his God and said, “Lord, don’t let your anger destroy your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with your great power and strength. ¹²Don’t let the people of Egypt say, ‘The Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt for an evil purpose. He planned to kill them in the mountains and destroy them from the earth.’ So stop being angry, and don’t destroy your people. ¹³Remember the men who served you—Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. You promised with an oath to them and said, ‘I will make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky. I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised them, and it will be theirs forever.’ ” ¹⁴So the Lord changed his mind and did not destroy the people as he had said he might.

¹⁵Then Moses went down the mountain, and in his hands he had the two stone tablets with the Agreement on them. The commands were written on both sides of each stone, front and back. ¹⁶God himself had made the tablets, and God himself had written the commands on the tablets.

¹⁷When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “It sounds like war down in the camp.”

¹⁸Moses answered:

“It is not a shout of victory;

it is not a cry of defeat.

It is the sound of singing that I hear.”

¹⁹When Moses came close to the camp, he saw the gold calf and the dancing, and he became very angry. He threw down the stone tablets that he was carrying and broke them at the bottom of the mountain. ²⁰Then he took the calf that the people had made and melted it in the fire. He ground it into powder. Then he threw the powder into the water and forced the Israelites to drink it.

²¹Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you? Why did you cause them to do such a terrible sin?”

²²Aaron answered, “Don’t be angry, master. You know that these people are always ready to do wrong. ²³The people said to me, ‘Moses led us out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him. Make us gods who will lead us.’ ²⁴So I told the people, ‘Take off your gold jewelry.’ When they gave me the gold, I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!”

²⁵Moses saw that the people were acting wildly. Aaron had let them get out of control and become fools in front of their enemies. ²⁶So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Let anyone who wants to follow the Lord come to me.” And all the people from the family of Levi gathered around Moses.

²⁷Then Moses said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, says this: ‘Every man must put on his sword and go through the camp from one end to the other. Each man must kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’ ” ²⁸The people from the family of Levi obeyed Moses, and that day about three thousand of the Israelites died. ²⁹Then Moses said, “Today you have been given for service to the Lord. You were willing to kill your own sons and brothers, and God has blessed you for this.”

³⁰The next day Moses told the people, “You have done a terrible sin. But now I will go up to the Lord. Maybe I can do something so your sins will be removed.” ³¹So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “How terribly these people have sinned! They have made for themselves gods from gold. ³²Now, please forgive them of this sin. If you will not, then erase my name from the book in which you have written the names of your people.”

³³But the Lord told Moses, “I will erase from my book the names of the people who sin against me. ³⁴So now, go. Lead the people where I have told you, and my angel will lead you. When the time comes to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

³⁵So the Lord caused terrible things to happen to the people because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

33Then the Lord said to Moses, “You and the people you brought out of Egypt must leave this place. Go to the land that I promised with an oath to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give that land to your descendants.’ ²I will send an angel to lead you, and I will force these people out of the land: the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ³Go up to a fertile land. But I will not go with you, because I might destroy you on the way, since you are such a stubborn people.”

⁴When the people heard this bad news, they became very sad, and none of them put on jewelry. ⁵This was because the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stubborn people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I would destroy you. So take off all your jewelry, and I will decide what to do with you.’ ” ⁶So the people of Israel took off their jewelry at Mount Sinai.

The Meeting Tent

⁷Moses used to take a tent and set it up a long way outside the camp; he called it the “Meeting Tent.” Anyone who wanted to ask the Lord about something would go to the Meeting Tent outside the camp. ⁸Whenever Moses went out to the Tent, all the people would rise and stand at the entrances of their tents, watching him until he entered the Meeting Tent. ⁹When Moses went into the Tent, the pillar of cloud would always come down and stay at the entrance of the Tent while the Lord spoke with Moses. ¹⁰Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud at the entrance of the Tent, they stood and worshiped, each person at the entrance of his own tent.

¹¹The Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but Moses’ young helper, Joshua son of Nun, did not leave the Tent.

¹²Moses said to the Lord, “You have told me to lead these people, but you did not say whom you would send with me. You have said to me, ‘I know you very well, and I am pleased with you.’ ¹³If I have truly pleased you, show me your plans so that I may know you and continue to please you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

¹⁴The Lord answered, “I myself will go with you, and I will give you victory.”

¹⁵Then Moses said to him, “If you yourself don’t go with us, then don’t send us away from this place. ¹⁶If you don’t go with us, no one will know that you are pleased with me and with your people. These people and I will be no different from any other people on earth.”

¹⁷Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will do what you ask, because I know you very well, and I am pleased with you.”

Moses Sees God’s Glory

¹⁸Then Moses said, “Now, please show me your glory.”

¹⁹The Lord answered, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will announce my name, the Lord, so you can hear it. I will show kindness to anyone to whom I want to show kindness, and I will show mercy to anyone to whom I want to show mercy. ²⁰But you cannot see my face, because no one can see me and live.

²¹“There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. ²²When my glory passes that place, I will put you in a large crack in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back. But my face must not be seen.”

Moses Gets New Stone Tablets

34The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two more stone tablets like the first two, and I will write the same words on them that were on the first two stones which you broke. ²Be ready tomorrow morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Stand before me there on the top of the mountain. ³No one may come with you or even be seen any place on the mountain. Not even the flocks or herds may eat grass near that mountain.”

⁴So Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Then early the next morning he went up Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, carrying the two stone tablets with him. ⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses, and the Lord called out his name: the Lord.

⁶The Lord passed in front of Moses and said, “I am the Lord. The Lord is a God who shows mercy, who is kind, who doesn’t become angry quickly, who has great love and faithfulness ⁷and is kind to thousands of people. The Lord forgives people for evil, for sin, and for turning against him, but he does not forget to punish guilty people. He will punish not only the guilty people, but also their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, and their great-great-grandchildren.”

⁸Then Moses quickly bowed to the ground and worshiped. ⁹He said, “Lord, if you are pleased with me, please go with us. I know that these are stubborn people, but forgive our evil and our sin. Take us as your own people.”

¹⁰Then…