Exodus 32:15–29

¹⁵Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law^y in his hands.^z They were inscribed^a on both sides, front and back. ¹⁶The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.^b

¹⁷When Joshua^c heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

¹⁸Moses replied:

“It is not the sound of victory,

it is not the sound of defeat;

it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

¹⁹When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf^d and the dancing,^e his anger burned^f and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces^g at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰And he took the calf the people had made and burned^h it in the fire; then he ground it to powder,ⁱ scattered it on the water^j and made the Israelites drink it.

²¹He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

²²“Do not be angry,^k my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil.^{l 23}They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’^{m 24}So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”ⁿ

²⁵Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock^o to their enemies. ²⁶So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.

²⁷Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ”^{p 28}The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. ²⁹Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”