Exodus 32
32
1 WHEN THE people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, [they] gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, Up, make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
2 So Aaron replied, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and daughters, and bring them to me.
3 So all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.
4 And he received the gold at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it a molten calf; and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!
5 And when Aaron saw the molten calf, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
7 The Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves;
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt!
9 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people;
10 Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and that I may destroy them; but I will make of you a great nation.
11 But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does Your wrath blaze hot against Your people, whom You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
12 Why should the Egyptians say, For evil He brought them forth, to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and change Your mind concerning this evil against Your people.
13 [Earnestly] remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.
14 Then the Lord turned from the evil which He had thought to do to His people.
15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tables of the Testimony in his hand, tables or tablets that were written on both sides.
16 The tables were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 But Moses said, It is not the sound of shouting for victory, neither is it the sound of the cry of the defeated, but the sound of singing that I hear.
19 And as soon as he came near to the camp he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses' anger blazed hot and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
20 And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin upon them?
22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord blaze hot; you know the people, that they are set on evil.
23 For they said to me, Make us gods which shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
24 I said to them, Those who have any gold, let them take it off. So they gave it to me; then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
25 And when Moses saw that the people were unruly and unrestrained (for Aaron had let them get out of control, so that they were a derision and object of shame among their enemies),
26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Whoever is on the Lord's side, let him come to me. And all the Levites [the priestly tribe] gathered together to him.
27 And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about 3000 men.
29 And Moses said [to the Levites, By your obedience to God's command] you have consecrated yourselves today [as priests] to the Lord, each man [at the cost of being] against his own son and his own brother, that the Lord may restore and bestow His blessing upon you this day.
30 The next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.
31 So Moses returned to the Lord, and said, Oh, these people have sinned a great sin and have made themselves gods of gold!
32 Yet now, if You will forgive their sin–and if not, blot me, I pray You, out of Your book which You have written!
33 But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him [not you] out of My book. [Dan. 12:1; Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5.]
34 But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have told you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I punish I will visit their sin upon them! [Exod. 23:20; 33:2, 3.]
35 And the Lord sent a plague upon the people because they made the calf which Aaron fashioned for them.
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Exodus 32: AMPC
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1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
Exodus 32
32
The People Make an Idol To Worship
(Deuteronomy 9.6-29)
1 #
Ac 7.40. After the people saw that Moses had been on the mountain for a long time, they went to Aaron and said, “Make us an image of a god who will lead and protect us. Moses brought us out of Egypt, but nobody knows what has happened to him.”
2Aaron told them, “Bring me the gold earrings that your wives and sons and daughters are wearing.” 3Everybody took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron, 4#1 K 12.28; Ac 7.41. then he melted them and made an idol in the shape of a young bull.
All the people said to one another, “This is the god who brought us out of Egypt!”
5When Aaron saw what was happening, he built an altar in front of the idol and said, “Tomorrow we will celebrate in honor of the Lord.” 6#1 Co 10.7. The people got up early the next morning and killed some animals to be used for sacrifices and others to be eaten. Then everyone ate and drank so much that they began to carry on like wild people.
7The Lord said to Moses:
Hurry back down! Those people you led out of Egypt are acting like fools. 8They have already stopped obeying me and have made themselves an idol in the shape of a young bull. They have bowed down to it, offered sacrifices, and said that it is the god who brought them out of Egypt. 9Moses, I have seen how stubborn these people are, 10and I'm angry enough to destroy them, so don't try to stop me. But I will make your descendants into a great nation.
11 #
Nu 14.13-19. Moses tried to get the Lord God to change his mind:
Our Lord, you used your mighty power to bring these people out of Egypt. Now don't become angry and destroy them. 12If you do, the Egyptians will say that you brought your people out here into the mountains just to get rid of them. Please don't be angry with your people. Don't destroy them!
13 #
Gn 22.16,17; Gn 17.8. Remember the solemn promise you made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You promised that someday they would have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky and that you would give them land.
14So even though the Lord had threatened to destroy the people, he changed his mind and let them live.
15-16Moses went back down the mountain with the two flat stones on which God had written all of his laws with his own hand, using both sides of the stones.
17When Joshua heard the noisy shouts of the people, he said to Moses, “A battle must be going on down in the camp.”
18But Moses replied, “It doesn't sound like they are shouting because they have won or lost a battle. It sounds more like a wild party!”
19As Moses got closer to the camp, he saw the idol, and he also saw the people dancing around. This made him so angry that he threw down the stones and broke them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20He melted the idol the people had made, and he ground it into powder. He scattered it in their water and made them drink it. 21Moses asked Aaron, “What did these people do to harm you? Why did you make them sin in this terrible way?”
22Aaron answered:
Don't be angry with me. You know as well as I do that they are determined to do evil. 23They even told me, “That man Moses led us out of Egypt, but now we don't know what has happened to him. Make us a god to lead us.” 24Then I asked them to bring me their gold earrings. They took them off and gave them to me. I threw the gold into a fire, and out came this bull.
25Moses knew that the people were out of control and that it was Aaron's fault. And now they had made fools of themselves in front of their enemies. 26So Moses stood at the gate of the camp and shouted, “Everyone who is on the Lord's side come over here!”
Then the men of the Levi tribe gathered around Moses, 27and he said to them, “The Lord God of Israel commands you to strap on your swords and go through the camp, killing your relatives, your friends, and your neighbors.”
28The men of the Levi tribe followed his orders, and that day they killed about 3,000 men. 29Moses said to them, “You obeyed the Lord and did what was right, and so you will serve as his priests for the people of Israel. It was hard for you to kill your own sons and brothers, but the Lord has blessed you and made you his priests today.”
30The next day Moses told the people, “This is a terrible thing you have done. But I will go back to the Lord to see if I can do something to keep this sin from being held against you.”
31Moses returned to the Lord and said, “The people have committed a terrible sin. They have made a gold idol to be their god. 32#Ps 69.28; Rev 3.5. But I beg you to forgive them. If you don't, please wipe my name out of your book.”#32.32 your book: The people of Israel believed that the Lord kept a record of the names of his people, and anyone whose name was removed from that book no longer belonged to the Lord.
33The Lord replied, “I will wipe out of my book the name of everyone who has sinned against me. 34Now take my people to the place I told you about, and my angel will lead you. But when the time comes, I will punish them for this sin.”
35So the Lord punished the people of Israel with a terrible disease for talking Aaron into making the gold idol.
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