The Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1-34

     While Moses was on the mountain talking with God about the covenant and the ten commandments, his brother Aaron stayed in camp with the people.

     "We are afraid of the smoke and fire and thunder," the people had told Moses. "You speak to God for us and tell us what God says."

     So Moses stayed in the thick cloud on the mountain while the people waited. He was on the mountain for forty days. The people got tired of waiting and went to Aaron.

     "Make us gods that we can see and bow down to," they said. "We don't know what has happened to Moses. He brought us out here in the desert and then disappeared."

        Aaron said, "Collect all your gold earrings." So they all took off their gold earrings. Aaron melted the gold and made a statue of a golden calf.

     "Here," he told the people. "Here is your god. This is the one who brought you from Egypt."

     "Tomorrow will be a feast day to honor God," Aaron said. When the people saw the calf, they gave offerings to it. They had a feast and danced and sang.

     Up on the mountain God spoke to Moses. "Get down there," God told Moses. "The people are in trouble. They have made a golden calf, and they are bowing and praying to it. They are saying that this calf brought them out of Egypt."

     Moses listened as God went on. "These people are stubborn," God told him. "I had better destroy them and start a new people, with you as the father of them all."

     "Lord, do not hurt them!" Moses cried. "Then the Egyptians will say that the God of the people of Israel just took them out in the desert to kill them. Remember your promise to Abraham and Isaac and Israel that the land you are giving us is for their families forever."

     So God decided not to destroy all the people of Israel.

     Moses started down the mountain. He took with him the two stone tablets that the ten commandments were written on. Part way down he was joined by Joshua, who was a captain of the Israelites.

     Soon they heard the sound of loud voices in the camp below them. "That sounds like the people are fighting a war with someone," Joshua said.

     But Moses said, "That isn't the sound of shouting and battle. It is the sound of singing."

     When they came into camp, they saw the golden calf and the people dancing around it. Moses was so angry that he threw down the stone tablets that God had given him and broke them to pieces. Then he took the golden calf that Aaron and the people had made and burned it. He ground it into powder, put the powdered gold into water, and made the people drink it.

     Moses told Aaron, "You have helped make the people do something very wrong. Why did you do this?"

     "They wanted me to make them a god," Aaron told Moses. "So we melted down their earrings in the fire, and out came this calf!"

     "Whoever is on Gods' side, stand by me!" Moses shouted. All the people from the family of Levi came to stand by Moses. They took swords and killed the people who worshiped the golden calf.

     The next day, Moses went back up the Mountain, "What the people did was terrible," he told God. "But I beg you to forgive them. If you can't forgive them, then be angry with me, not at them."

     "I will have to punish these people for their sins," God said. "But you must go on and lead them to Canaan. I will send an angel with you."