1 The people saw that Moses was slow in coming down from the mountain, so they crowded around Aaron and told him, "Come, make us gods who will go ahead of us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has happened to him."
2 Aaron answered them, "Pull off the gold rings in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me."
3 So all the people pulled off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.
4 He took what they handed him, shaped it with a graving tool and made it into a cast metal calf. Then they said, "These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!"
5 Seeing this, Aaron built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a feast to the LORD."
6 Early the next day they got up and offered burnt offerings and presented peace offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, and then got up to revel.
7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly.
8 They have been quick to turn away from the path I commanded them. They have made themselves a cast metal calf; they have bowed down to it, sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!'"
9 The LORD also said to Moses, "I have watched this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.
10 So now leave me alone, so that my anger may blaze against them and I may wipe them out. Then I will make you into a great nation."
11 But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. "LORD," he said, "why should your anger blaze against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand?
12 Why let the Egyptians say, 'He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn back from your burning anger and change your mind about this disaster for your people.
13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self, telling them, 'I will make your descendants as many as the stars of the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land I have promised, and it will be their possession forever.'"
14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster he had said he would bring on his people.
15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were inscribed on both sides, front and back.
16 The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing, engraved on the tablets.
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, "There is the sound of battle in the camp."
18 But Moses replied, "It is not the sound of a victory cry, nor the sound of a cry of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear."
19 As he drew near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger blazed. He flung the tablets from his hands and smashed them at the foot of the mountain.
20 He took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it over the water and made the children of Israel drink it.
21 Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you, that you brought such a great sin on them?"
22 "My lord must not be angry," Aaron answered. "You yourself know how bent on evil this people is.
23 They said to me, 'Make us gods who will go ahead of us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has happened to him.'
24 So I told them, 'Whoever has gold, take it off.' They gave it to me; I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"
25 Moses saw that the people were running wild, for Aaron had let them get out of control, to the scorn of their enemies.
26 So Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me!" And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 He told them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Each of you strap a sword to your side. Go back and forth through the camp from one gate to the other, and each of you kill his brother, his friend and his neighbor.'"
28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people fell.
29 Moses said, "Consecrate yourselves today to the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and his brother, so that he may grant you a blessing today."
30 The next day Moses said to the people, "You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin."
31 So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Alas, this people has committed a great sin; they have made gods of gold for themselves.
32 But now, if only you would forgive their sin! If not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
33 The LORD answered Moses, "The one who has sinned against me is the one I will blot out of my book.
34 Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about. My angel will go ahead of you. But on the day I punish, I will punish them for their sin."
35 And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.