¹⁸ “Then, as before, I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights. I ate no bread and drank no water because of the great sin you had committed by doing what the Lord hated, provoking him to anger.

²⁸ Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord^[a] wrote the terms of the covenant—the Ten Commandments^[b]—on the stone tablets.

⁹ This happened when I was on the mountain receiving the tablets of stone inscribed with the words of the covenant that the Lord had made with you. I was there for forty days and forty nights, and all that time I ate no food and drank no water.

¹⁶ David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground.

¹⁰ “As for me, I stayed on the mountain in the Lord’s presence for forty days and nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the Lord listened to my pleas and agreed not to destroy you.

¹⁰ Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? ¹² Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! ¹³ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.^[a] You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’”

¹⁴ So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.