Exodus 32:30–33:6

³⁰On the morrow Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people have sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. ³²But now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” ³³But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. ³⁴But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

³⁵And the Lord sent a plague upon the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made.

Chapter 33

¹The Lord said to Moses, “Depart, go up hence, you and 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 your descendants I will give it.’ ²And I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ³Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

⁴When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man put on his ornaments. ⁵For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” ⁶Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.