⁷ Remember; do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

⁸ “Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.^{(A) 9} When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.^{(B) 10} And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.^{(C) 11} At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up; go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.’^{(D) 13} Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.^{(E) 14} Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.’^(F)

¹⁵ “So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.^{(G) 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.^{(H) 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.^{(I) 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.^{(J) 20} The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. ²¹ Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust, and I threw the dust into the stream that runs down the mountain.^(K)

²² “At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath.^{(L) 23} And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has^[b] known you.^(M)