Thematic Bible: Golden calf


Thematic Bible



Hearing this bad news the people were full of grief, and no one put on his ornaments.


And he took the gold from them and, hammering it with an instrument, he made it into the metal image of a young ox: and they said, This is your god, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.


But Moses made prayer to God, saying, Lord, why is your wrath burning against your people whom you took out of the land of Egypt, with great power and with the strength of your hand? Why let the Egyptians say, He took them out to an evil fate, to put them to death on the mountains, cutting them off from the earth? Let your wrath be turned away from them, and send not this evil on your people. Have in mind Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you gave your oath, saying, I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and all this land will I give to your seed, as I said, to be their heritage for ever. read more.
So the Lord let himself be turned from his purpose of sending punishment on his people.

Then Moses went back to the Lord and said, This people has done a great sin, making themselves a god of gold; But now, if you will give them forgiveness--but if not, let my name be taken out of your book. And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has done evil against me will be taken out of my book. read more.
But now, go, take the people into that place of which I have given you word; see, my angel will go before you: but when the time of my judging has come, I will send punishment on them for their sin.

And I went down on my face before the Lord, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights, without taking food or drinking water, because of all your sin, in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and moving him to wrath. For I was full of fear because of the wrath of the Lord which was burning against you, with your destruction in view. But again the Lord's ear was open to my prayer. And the Lord, in his wrath, would have put Aaron to death: and I made prayer for Aaron at the same time. read more.
And I took your sin, the image which you had made, and put it in the fire and had it hammered and crushed very small till it was only dust: and the dust I put in the stream flowing down from the mountain. Again at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you made the Lord angry. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and take the land which I have given you; you went against the orders of the Lord your God, and had no faith in him, and would not give ear to his voice. From the day when I first had knowledge of you, you have gone against the word of the Lord. So I went down on my face in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights as I did at first; because the Lord had said that he would put an end to you. And I made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord God, do not send destruction on your people and your heritage, to whom, by your great power, you have given salvation, whom you have taken out of Egypt by the strength of your hand. Keep in mind your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not looking at the hard heart of this people, or their evil-doing and their sin: Or it may be said in the land from which you have taken them, Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land which he said he would give them, and because of his hate for them, he has taken them out to put them to death in the waste land. But still they are your people and your heritage, whom you took out by your great power and by your stretched-out arm.

And I was in the mountain, as at the first time, for forty days and forty nights; and again the ears of the Lord were open to my prayer, and he did not send destruction on you.

And he was purposing to put an end to them if Moses, his special servant, had not gone up before him, between him and his people, turning back his wrath, to keep them from destruction.


And the Lord, in his wrath, would have put Aaron to death: and I made prayer for Aaron at the same time.


Basic English, produced by Mr C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute - public domain