The Golden Calf

1 Then Moses came down. He was covered with invisible light, for he had gone down into the place where the light of the sun and moon is, and the light of his face outshone the brightness of the sun and moon,⁠a and he did not know it. When he came down to the children of Israel, they saw him and did not recognize him; but when he spoke, then they recognized him. This was like what happened in Egypt when Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him. And afterward, when Moses knew that his face had become glorious, he made a veil to cover his face. 2 But while he was on the mountain, the heart of the people was corrupted, and they came together to Aaron, saying, “Make us gods to serve, as the other nations also have, for this Moses, by whom the wonders were done before us, has been taken from us.” Aaron said to them, “Be patient, for Moses will come and bring judgment near to us,⁠b and light up a law for us, and declare from his mouth the great excellence of God,⁠c and appoint judgments for our people.” 3 When he said this, they did not listen to him, so that the word might be fulfilled that was spoken in the day when the people sinned in building the tower,⁠d when God said, “And now, if I do not stop them, they will dare everything they take it into their minds to do, and worse.” But Aaron was afraid, because the people were greatly emboldened, and he said to them, “Bring me the earrings of your wives.” And the men sought each one his wife, and they gave them at once, and they put them in the fire, and they were made into a figure, and out came a molten calf. 4 The Lord said to Moses, “Hurry down from here, for the people are corrupted and have dealt deceitfully with my ways that I commanded them. What if the promises are at an end that I made to their fathers when I said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land where you dwell’? For the people have not yet entered the land, and even though they carry my judgments, they have already forsaken me. So I know that if they enter the land, they will commit even greater wrongs. Now therefore I also will forsake them; but I will turn again and make peace with them, so that a house may be built for me among them. And that house also will be done away with, because they will sin against me, and the race of men will be to me like a drop from a pitcher and will be counted as spittle.” 5 Moses hurried and came down and saw the calf, and he looked at the tablets and saw that they were no longer written on; and he hurried and broke them. His hands were opened, and he became like a woman in labor with her firstborn, who, when she is seized by her pangs, has her hands on her bosom and has no strength to help herself give birth. 6 After an hour he said to himself, “Bitterness does not prevail forever, nor does evil have dominion always. Now therefore I will arise and strengthen myself; for although they have sinned, the things that were declared to me above will not be in vain.” 7 He arose and broke the calf, cast it into the water, and made the people drink. And it happened that if anyone’s will and mind had been set on the calf being made, his tongue was cut off; but if anyone had been forced to it by fear, his face shone. 8 Then Moses went up the mountain and prayed to the Lord, saying, “Now, you are God who planted this vineyard and set its roots in the deep and stretched out its shoots to your most high seat. Look upon it at this time, for the vineyard has put forth its fruit and has not known the one who tended it. And now, if you are angry with your vineyard and root it up out of the deep and wither up the shoots from your most high eternal seat, the deep will no longer come to nourish it, nor your throne to refresh that vineyard of yours which you have burned. 9 “For you are the one who is all light, and you have adorned your house with precious stones and gold and perfumes and spices, and with balsam wood and cinnamon; with roots of myrrh and costum you have strewn your house, and with various foods and the sweetness of many drinks you have satisfied it. If therefore you do not have pity on your vineyard, all these things are done in vain, Lord, and you will have no one to glorify you. For even if you plant another vineyard, that one will not trust you either, because you destroyed the first. And if you truly forsake the world, who will do for you what you have spoken as God? Now let your anger be restrained from your vineyard, because of what you have said and what remains to be spoken, and do not let your labor be in vain, nor let your inheritance be torn apart in humiliation.” 10 God said to him, “I have become merciful according to your words. Carve out for yourself two tablets of stone from the place where you carved the first, and write on them again my judgments that were on the first.”