¹² Now the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and ^[a]stay there, and ^(A)I will give you the stone tablets ^[b]with the Law and the ^[c]commandments which I have written for their instruction.”

¹⁸ When He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses ^(A)the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, ^(B)written by the finger of God.

^15 (A)Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, ^(B)tablets which were written on both ^[a]sides; they were written on one side and the other. ¹⁶ The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing engraved on the tablets. ¹⁷ Now when Joshua heard the sound of the people ^[b]as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of war in the camp.” ¹⁸ But he said,

Moses’ Anger

¹⁹ And it came about, as soon as ^[c]Moses approached the camp, that ^(C)he saw the calf and the people dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and ^(D)he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them to pieces ^[d]at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰ Then ^(E)he took the calf which they had made and completely burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.

²¹ Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” ²² And Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn; you know the people yourself, ^(F)that they are ^[e]prone to evil. ²³ For ^(G)they said to me, ‘Make ^[f]a god for us who will go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him.’ ²⁴ So I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off.’ Then they gave it to me, and ^(H)I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

²⁵ Now when Moses saw that the people were ^[g]out of control—for Aaron had ^(I)let them ^[h]get out of control to the point of being an object of ridicule among ^[i]their enemies— ²⁶ Moses then stood at the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him. ²⁷ And he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘Every man of you put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his ^[j]neighbor.’” ²⁸ So ^(J)the sons of Levi did ^[k]as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day. ²⁹ Then Moses said, “^[l]Dedicate yourselves today to the Lord—for every man has been against his son and against his brother—in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.”

³⁰ And on the next day Moses said to the people, “^(K)You yourselves have ^[m]committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can ^(L)make atonement for your sin.” ³¹ Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, this people has ^[n]committed a great sin, and they have made a ^(M)god of gold for themselves! ³² But now, if You will forgive their sin, very well; but if not, please wipe me out from Your ^(N)book which You have written!” ³³ However, the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, ^(O)I will wipe him out of My book. ³⁴ But go now, lead the people ^(P)where I told you. Behold, ^(Q)My angel shall go before you; nevertheless ^(R)on the day when I ^[o]punish, ^(S)I will ^[p]punish them for their sin.” ^35 (T)Then the Lord struck the people with a plague, because of ^(U)what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.

⁷ But if the ^(A)ministry of death, engraved ^(B)in letters on stones, came ^[a]with glory ^(C)so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,