¹⁸ Then I fell down before Adonai, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of Adonai and thus provoking him. ¹⁹ I was terrified that because of how angry Adonai was at you, of how heatedly displeased he was, that he would destroy you. But Adonai listened to me that time too. ²⁰ In addition, Adonai was very angry with Aharon and would have destroyed him; but I prayed for Aharon also at the same time. ²¹ I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it up in the fire, beat it to pieces, and ground it up still smaller, until it was as fine as dust; then I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain.

²² “Again at Tav‘erah, Massah and Kivrot-HaTa’avah you made Adonai angry; ²³ and when Adonai sent you off from Kadesh-Barnea by saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you,’ you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God — you neither trusted him nor heeded what he said. ²⁴ You have been rebelling against Adonai from the day I first knew you!

²⁵ “So I fell down before Adonai for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because Adonai had said he would destroy you.