³⁴ Now go and lead the people to the place I described to you. My messenger here will go in front of you. When the day of reckoning comes, I’ll count their sin against them.” ³⁵ Then the Lord sent a plague on the people because of what they did with the bull calf that Aaron made.

The Lord: “I can’t go”

33 The Lord said to Moses, “Go and leave this place, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt. Go to the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I’ll give it to your descendants.’ ² I’ll send a messenger before you. I’ll drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ³ Go to this land full of milk and honey. But I won’t go up with you because I would end up destroying you along the way since you are a stubborn people.”

⁴ When the people heard the bad news, they were sorry. No one put on any jewelry, ⁵ because the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stubborn people. If I were to go up with you even for a single moment, I would destroy you. So now take off your jewelry, while I figure out what to do with you.’” ⁶ So after leaving Mount Horeb the Israelites rid themselves of their jewelry.

Speaking with the Lord at the meeting tent

⁷ Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, far away from the camp. He called it the meeting tent. Everyone who wanted advice from the Lord would go out to the meeting tent outside the camp. ⁸ Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand at the entrance to their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.