Exodus 32:5-14
English Standard Version
Chapter 32
5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord." 6And 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.
7And the Lord said to Moses, "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
8They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’"
9And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
10Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you."
11But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, "O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’"
14And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.