Deuteronomy 9:4-12

Revised Standard Version

⁴ “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. ⁵ Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶ “Know therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. ⁷ Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you came out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 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. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ And the Lord gave me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.’