³⁰ because the children of Israel and the children of Judah ^(A)have done only evil before Me from their youth. For the children of Israel have provoked Me only to anger with the work of their hands,’ says the Lord.

^22 (A)For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. ²³ But this is what I commanded them, saying, ^(B)‘Obey My voice, and ^(C)I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ ^24 (D)Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but ^(E)followed^[a] the counsels and the ^[b]dictates of their evil hearts, and ^(F)went^[c] backward and not forward. ²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even ^(G)sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ^26 (H)Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but ^(I)stiffened their neck. ^(J)They did worse than their fathers.

⁷ Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the Lord, “that you might ^(A)provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

⁷ “Remember! Do not forget how you ^(A)provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. ^(B)From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Also ^(C)in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. ^9 (D)When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and ^(E)forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. ^10 (F)Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire ^(G)in^[a] the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

¹² “Then the Lord said to me, ^(H)‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have ^(I)quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’

²¹ And the Lord smelled ^(A)a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again ^(B)curse the ground for man’s sake, although the ^(C)imagination^[a] of man’s heart is evil from his youth; ^(D)nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.