¹The people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, and the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Get up, make us a God who will go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

²Aaron said to them, "Tear off the gold earrings that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me."

³All the people tore off the gold earrings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

⁴He took them from their hand, shaped it with the graving tool, and made it a calf of cast metal. Then they said, "These are your God, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt."

⁵Aaron saw this and built an altar before it; and Aaron proclaimed and said, "A festival for Yahweh tomorrow."

⁶They rose early the next day, brought up burnt offerings and brought near peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

⁷Yahweh spoke to Moses, "Go, go down, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly."

⁸They have turned aside quickly from the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a calf of cast metal, bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your God, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.'

⁹Yahweh said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and look, it is a hard-necked people."

¹⁰And now, let me be, so that my anger may burn against them and I may make an end of them; and I will make you into a great nation.

¹¹Moses entreated the face of Yahweh his God and said, "Why, Yahweh, does your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great strength and a mighty hand?"

¹²Why should the Egyptians say, 'He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains and make an end of them from the face of the ground'? Turn back from the burning of your anger, and relent about the evil against your people.

¹³Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself, and you spoke to them, 'I will multiply your seed like the stars of the skies, and all this land that I said I will give to your seed, and they will inherit it forever.'

¹⁴Yahweh relented over the evil that he had spoken of doing to his people.

¹⁵Moses turned and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets written on both their sides; on this side and on that side they were written.

¹⁶The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted and said to Moses, "There is a sound of war in the camp."

¹⁸He said, "It is not the sound of singing of victory, and it is not the sound of singing of defeat; the sound of singing is what I hear."

¹⁹It happened that as he drew near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses' anger burned; he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces under the mountain.

²⁰He took the calf that they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it until it was fine, scattered it on the face of the waters, and made the children of Israel drink it.

²¹Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you, that you have brought a great sin on them?"

²²Aaron said, "Do not let the anger of my lord burn. You yourself know the people, that it is set on evil."

²³They said to me, 'Make us a God who will go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'

²⁴I said to them, 'Whoever has gold, tear it off yourselves.' They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.

²⁵Moses saw that the people were let loose, for Aaron had let them loose, to be a scorn among those who rise against them.

²⁶Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Who is for Yahweh? To me!" And all the children of Levi gathered to him.

²⁷He said to them, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Each of you put his sword on his thigh; pass through and return, from gate to gate in the camp, and each of you kill his brother, each his neighbor, each his close kin."

²⁸The children of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and on that day about three thousand men of the people fell.

²⁹Moses said, "Fill your hand today for Yahweh, for each one is against his son and against his brother, so that a blessing may be put on you today."

³⁰On the next day Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to Yahweh; perhaps I can cover for your sin."

³¹Moses returned to Yahweh and said, "Oh, please, this people has sinned a great sin, and they have made themselves a God of gold."

³²And now, if you will bear their sin — and if not, wipe me out, please, from your record, which you wrote.

³³Yahweh said to Moses: Whoever has sinned against me, I will wipe him out of my record.

³⁴And now go, lead the people to where I spoke to you; look, my messenger will go before you; and on the day of my visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

³⁵Yahweh struck the people because they made the calf that Aaron had made.