³⁰ For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth; the people of Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger by the work of their hands, says the Lord.^(A)

²² For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.^{(A) 23} But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”^{(B) 24} Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels and looked backward rather than forward.^{(C) 25} From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day,^{(D) 26} yet they did not listen to me or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.^(E)

⁷ Yet you did not listen to me, says the Lord, and so you have provoked me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.^(A)

²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”^(A)

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)

²¹ And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.^(A)