Old Testament · Law

Exodus chapter 32

When the people saw that Moses was taking forever to come back down the mountain, they crowded around Aaron and said, “Come on — make us who will . Because this Moses guy, the one who brought us out of Egypt? We have no idea what happened to him.”Aaron told them, “Pull the off your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”So all the people pulled off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron.He took what they handed him, shaped it with a carving tool, and cast it into a metal . Then the people said, “Israel — these are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!”When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a to Yahweh!”The next day the people got up early, offered , and brought . Then they sat down to eat and drink, and got up to .Yahweh said to Moses, “Get down there — now. , the ones you brought out of Egypt, have completely lost it.”“They’ve already I laid out for them. They’ve made themselves a metal calf, bowed down to it, offered sacrifices to it, and said, ‘Israel — these are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!’”Yahweh said to Moses, “I’ve been watching these people, and they are .”“Now leave me alone so against them and I can destroy them. Then I’ll start over and make a from you instead.”But Moses with Yahweh his God. He said, “Yahweh, why let your anger burn against your own people — the ones you brought out of Egypt with incredible power and an ?”“Why give the Egyptians a reason to say, ‘He brought them out just to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger. about this disaster you’re planning for your people.”“Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel — your servants. You : ‘I will make your descendants as countless as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land I promised, and it will be theirs .’”So Yahweh about the disaster he had said he would bring on his people.Moses turned and headed down the mountain with the two stone tablets of the in his hands — tablets that were written on both sides, front and back.The tablets were , and the writing was God’s own writing, carved into the stone.When heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!”Moses replied, “That’s not the sound of a victory cheer, and it’s not the sound of a defeat cry — what I hear is the sound of .”As soon as Moses got close to the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, . He threw the tablets out of his hands and at the base of the mountain.Then he took the calf they had made, melted it in the fire, ground it into powder, scattered it on the water, and .Moses said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you that you led them into such a ?”Aaron said, “Don’t be angry, my lord. You know these people — they’re .”“They told me, ‘Make us gods who will lead us, because this Moses who brought us out of Egypt — we don’t know what happened to him.’”“So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off.’ They gave it to me, I threw it in the fire, and !”Moses saw that the people were — Aaron had let them spiral out of control, making them .So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and called out, “Everyone who is on Yahweh’s side — come to me!” And all the rallied around him.He told them, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, and each of you kill .’”The Levites did what Moses said, and about people died that day.Moses said, “Today you have been , even at the cost of your own sons and brothers. He is giving you his today.”The next day Moses told the people, “You have committed a massive failure. But now I’m going back up to Yahweh — maybe I can for what you’ve done.”So Moses went back to Yahweh and said, “Please — these people have committed a massive failure. They made themselves .”“But now — please their failure. And if you won’t... then erase me from .”Yahweh replied to Moses, “Whoever has — that’s who I’ll erase from my book.”“Now go — lead the people to the place I told you about. Look, will go ahead of you. But when the time comes for me to , I will settle accounts with them for their failure.”And Yahweh because of the calf — .