The Golden Calf
1 When 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.” 2 So 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.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 zAnd 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!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron bmade a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And 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.
7 And the Lord said to Moses, e“Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have fcorrupted themselves. 8 They 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!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, hit is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now 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.”
11 But 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? 12 nWhy 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. 13 Remember 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.’” 14 And the Lord rrelented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
15 Then 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. 16 uThe tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When vJoshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But 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.” 19 And 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. 20 He 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.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, y“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. zYou know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For 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.’ 24 So 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.”
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, cto the derision of their enemies), 26 then 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. 27 And 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.’” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And 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.”
30 The 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.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, fthis people has sinned a great sin. They have hmade for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if iyou will forgive their sin—but if not, please jblot me out of kyour book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, l“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. 34 mBut 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.”
35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.
The Command to Leave Sinai
1 The 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.’ 2 I will send an qangel before you, rand I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 sGo 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.”
4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they wmourned, and xno one put on his ornaments. 5 For 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.’” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
The Tent of Meeting
7 Now 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. 8 Whenever 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. 9 When 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. 10 And 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. 11 Thus 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
12 Moses 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.’ 13 Now 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.” 14 And he said, j“My presence will go with you, and kI will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, l“If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For 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?”
17 And 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.” 18 Moses said, “Please pshow me your glory.” 19 And 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. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for sman shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and 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. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall vnot be seen.”
Moses Makes New Tablets
1 The 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. 2 Be 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. 3 No 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.” 4 So 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. 5 The Lord bdescended in the cloud and stood with him there, and cproclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The 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, 7 gkeeping steadfast love for thousands,1 hforgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but iwho will by no means clear the guilty, jvisiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly kbowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please llet the Lord go in the midst of us, for mit is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for nyour inheritance.”
The Covenant Renewed
10 And he said, “Behold, oI am making a covenant. Before all your people pI will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an qawesome thing that I will do with you.
11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, rI will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 sTake care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a tsnare in your midst. 13 You shall utear down their altars and vbreak their pillars and cut down their wAsherim 14 (for xyou shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 slest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they ywhore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and zyou are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of atheir daughters for your sons, and their daughters ywhore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
17 b“You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
18 c“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in dthe month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 eAll that open the womb are mine, all your male2 livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The ffirstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And gnone shall appear before me empty-handed.
21 h“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 iYou shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 jThree times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will kcast out nations before you and lenlarge your borders; mno one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
25 n“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, oor let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 pThe best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. qYou shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words rI have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 sSo he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he twrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.3
The Shining Face of Moses
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with uthe two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face vshone because he had been talking with God.4 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face wshone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he xcommanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a yveil over his face.
34 Whenever Moses zwent in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was ashining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
