Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What is this that you have done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

“You shall not make for yourself any idol, or any likeness (form, manifestation) of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth [as an object to worship].

And he took the gold from their hands, and fashioned it with an engraving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.