Exodus 33, 34
For the Lord had said to Moses, ” Say to the children of Israel, ” you are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you. Now therefore take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do to you.”
After the Lord God used Moses to help to rescue the children of Israel from slavery and Egypt’s Pharoah, they forgot how much God had done for them.
When Moses went up to the mountain to meet with God, and to receive the ten commandments, the people got impatient when Moses’s return was delayed.
They made an idol – a golden calf and started worshiping it.
And the Lord God said to Moses, ” Go get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.”
” They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ” this is your god, O Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt.
And the Lord said to Moses, ” I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people.”
“Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may born hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.
Then Moses went down to see what the people had done.
Then Moses said to the people ” Whoever is on the Lord’s side – come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him.
Then Moses said to the people, ” you have committed a great sin, so now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.
So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold.”
Yet now, if You will forgive their sin – but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”
And the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.”
” Now therefore, go lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you.”
” Behold My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin.”
And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
Then he said ” If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord , let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.
