Exodus 32

¹ When the people saw that Moses was a long time before coming down the mountain, they gathered round Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make us a god to go at the head of us; this Moses, the man who brought us up from Egypt, we do not know what has become of him’.

² Aaron answered them, ‘Take the gold rings out of the ears of your wives and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me’.

³ So they all took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

⁴ He took them from their hands and, in a mould, melted the metal down and cast an effigy of a calf. ‘Here is your God, Israel,’ they cried ‘who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’

⁵ Observing this, Aaron built an altar before the effigy. ‘Tomorrow’ he said ‘will be a feast in honour of Yahweh.’

⁶ And so, early the next day they offered holocausts and brought communion sacrifices; then all the people sat down to eat and drink, and afterwards got up to amuse themselves.

⁷ Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, ‘Go down now, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have apostasised.

⁸ They have been quick to leave the way I marked out for them; they have made themselves a calf of molten metal and have worshipped it and offered it sacrifice. “Here is your God, Israel,” they have cried “who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”‘

⁹ Yahweh said to Moses, ‘I can see how headstrong these people are!

¹⁰ Leave me, now, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them; of you, however, I will make a great nation.’

¹¹ But Moses pleaded with Yahweh his God. ‘Yahweh,’ he said ‘why should your wrath blaze out against this people of yours whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with arm outstretched and mighty hand?

¹² Why let the Egyptians say, “Ah, it was in treachery that he brought them out, to do them to death in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth”? Leave your burning wrath; relent and do not bring this disaster on your people.

¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, your servants to whom by your own self you swore and made this promise: I will make your offspring as many as the stars of heaven, and all this land which I promised I will give to your descendants, and it shall be their heritage for ever.’

¹⁴ So Yahweh relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

¹⁵ Moses made his way back down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back.

¹⁶ These tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God’s writing engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷ Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting. ‘There is the sound of battle in the camp’, he told Moses.

¹⁸ Moses answered him: ‘No song of victory is this sound, no wailing for defeat this sound; it is the sound of chanting that I hear’.

¹⁹ As he approached the camp and saw the calf and the groups dancing, Moses’ anger blazed. He threw down the tablets he was holding and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰ He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water; and he made the sons of Israel drink it.[*a]

²¹ To Aaron Moses said, ‘What has this people done to you, for you to bring such a great sin on them?’

²² ‘Let not my lord’s anger blaze like this’ Aaron answered. ‘You know yourself how prone this people is to evil.

²³ They said to me, “Make us a god to go at our head; this Moses, the man who brought us up from Egypt, we do not know what has become of him”.

²⁴ So I said to them, “Who has gold?”, and they took it off and brought it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.’

²⁵ When Moses saw the people so out of hand – for Aaron had allowed them to lapse into idolatry with enemies all round them –

²⁶ he stood at the gate of the camp and shouted, ‘Who is for Yahweh? To me!’ And all the sons of Levi rallied to him.

²⁷ And he said to them, ‘This is the message of Yahweh, the God of Israel, “Gird on your sword, every man of you, and quarter the camp from gate to gate, killing one his brother, another his friend, another his neighbour”‘.

²⁸ The sons of Levi carried out the command of Moses, and of the people about three thousand men perished that day.

²⁹ ‘Today’ Moses said ‘you have won yourselves investiture as priests of Yahweh at the cost, one of his son, another of his brother; and so he grants you a blessing today.’

³⁰ On the following day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a grave sin. But now I shall go up to Yahweh: perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’

³¹ And Moses returned to Yahweh. ‘I am grieved,’ he cried ‘this people has committed a grave sin, making themselves a god of gold.

³² And yet, if it pleased you to forgive this sin of theirs…! But if not, then blot me out from the book that you have written.’

³³ Yahweh answered Moses, ‘It is the man who has sinned against me that I shall blot out from my book.

³⁴ Go now, lead the people to the place of which I told you. My angel shall go before you but, on the day of my visitation, I shall punish them for their sin.’

³⁵ And Yahweh punished the people for moulding the calf that Aaron had made.