Deuteronomy 9:16-19

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁶ Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God, by casting for yourselves an image;^[a] you had been quick to turn from the way that the Lord had commanded you.^{(A) 17} So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. ¹⁸ Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight.^{(B) 19} For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.^(C)