⁷ Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. ⁸ Also in Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath, and Yahweh was angry with you to destroy you. ⁹ When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ Yahweh delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words which Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly.

¹¹ It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Yahweh said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!”

¹³ Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴ Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”

¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which Yahweh had commanded you. ¹⁷ I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸ I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also. ²⁰ Yahweh was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹ I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. ²² At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath. ²³ When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn’t believe him or listen to his voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you.