⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I come to you ^(A)in the thick cloud, ^(B)that the people may hear when I speak with you, and believe you forever.”

So Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

¹² I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will ^(A)make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

¹³ And ^(B)Moses said to the Lord: ^(C)“Then the Egyptians will hear it, for by Your might You brought these people up from among them, ¹⁴ and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have ^(D)heard that You, Lord, are among these people; that You, Lord, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, ¹⁶ ‘Because the Lord was not ^(E)able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.’ ¹⁷ And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying, ^18 (F)‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, ^(G)visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ ^19 (H)Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, ^(I)according to the greatness of Your mercy, just ^(J)as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

²⁰ Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, ^(K)according to your word;

¹³ “Furthermore ^(A)the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed ^(B)they are a ^[a]stiff-necked people. ^14 (C)Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and ^(D)blot out their name from under heaven; ^(E)and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’

^15 (F)“So I turned and came down from the mountain, and ^(G)the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And ^(H)I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and ^(I)broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸ And I ^(J)fell^[b] down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ^19 (K)For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. ^(L)But the Lord listened to me at that time also. ²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹ Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I ^(M)threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.

²² “Also at ^(N)Taberah and ^(O)Massah and ^(P)Kibroth Hattaavah you ^[c]provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³ Likewise, ^(Q)when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ^(R)you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. ^24 (S)You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

^25 (T)“Thus I ^[d]prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. ²⁶ Therefore I prayed to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and ^(U)Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which You brought us should say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” ²⁹ Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.’