⁷ Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.”^(A)

⁴¹ At that time they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands.^(A)

¹⁸ Even when they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,^(A)

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.^(A)

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.’^{(A) 13} Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.^{(B) 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.’^(C)

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.^{(D) 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.^(E)

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)

³⁵ Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf—the one that Aaron had made.^(A)

⁴ He took these from them, formed them in a mold,^[a] and cast an image of a calf, and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”^{(A) 5} When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” ⁶ They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.^(B)

⁷ The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;^{(C) 8} they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ”^(D)