A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
Exodus 32
Exodus 32 is the thirty-second chapter of the book of Exodus and the chapter of the golden calf. The 35-verse chapter is the load-bearing crisis of the book. While Moses is on the mountain receiving the instructions, the people below break the covenant they had just sworn to keep. The chapter records the making of the calf, Moses's intercession, his descent and confrontation with Aaron, the Levites' loyalty test, and Moses's second intercession with one of the most piercing lines in the Bible.
The chapter opens with the people gathering around Aaron because Moses is taking so long on the mountain. They tell him, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!" Aaron takes the gold earrings of their wives and sons and daughters, melts them, and fashions a calf with an engraving tool. The people say, "These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" Aaron builds an altar in front of it and announces, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD." Early the next morning the people offer burnt and peace offerings, then sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play.
On the mountain, the LORD tells Moses to go down because the people have corrupted themselves. They are a stiff-necked people. He offers to consume them and to make Moses into a great nation. Moses pleads. Why should the Egyptians say that the LORD brought them out to slaughter them in the mountains? He asks the LORD to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel and the oath he swore by himself: that he would make their descendants as numerous as the stars and give them the land. The LORD relents.
Moses descends with the two tablets of the testimony, written by God, the work of God. Joshua hears the noise of the camp and thinks it is the sound of war. Moses corrects him: it is the sound of singing. When Moses sees the calf and the dancing, his anger burns. He throws the tablets from his hands and breaks them at the foot of the mountain. He takes the calf, burns it with fire, grinds it to powder, scatters it on water, and makes the Israelites drink it.
He confronts Aaron. Aaron blames the people and tells the story: he received the gold, threw it into the fire, "and out came this calf." Moses sees that the people are out of control. He stands at the gate of the camp and calls out, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." All the Levites gather to him. He tells them to take their swords and go through the camp, and each man is to kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor. About three thousand fall that day. Moses tells the Levites that they have set themselves apart to the LORD, since each was against his own son and brother.
The next day Moses goes up again to seek atonement. He tells the people, "You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." He goes back to the LORD and prays: "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made gods of gold for themselves. Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written."
The LORD answers that whoever has sinned against him will be blotted out of the book. He tells Moses to go and lead the people to the place he has spoken of; an angel will go before them. But when the time comes for punishment, the LORD will punish their sin. The chapter closes with a brief note: the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they had done with the calf Aaron made.
Verse 1. Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!”
Verse 2. So Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that are on your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”
Verse 3. Then all the people took off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron.
Verse 4. He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
Verse 5. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”
Verse 6. So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Verse 7. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
Verse 8. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
Verse 9. The LORD also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.
Verse 10. Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
Verse 11. But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
Verse 12. Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.
Verse 13. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’”
Verse 14. So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.
Verse 15. Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.
Verse 16. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Verse 17. When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “The sound of war is in the camp.”
Verse 18. But Moses replied: “It is neither the cry of victory nor the cry of defeat; I hear the sound of singing!”
Verse 19. As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.
Verse 20. Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, and scattered the powder over the face of the water. Then he forced the Israelites to drink it.
Verse 21. “What did this people do to you,” Moses asked Aaron, “that you have led them into so great a sin?”
Verse 22. “Do not be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil.
Verse 23. They told me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!’
Verse 24. So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, let him take it off,’ and they gave it to me. And when I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!”
Verse 25. Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them run wild and become a laughingstock to their enemies.
Verse 26. So Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered around him.
Verse 27. He told them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each of you men is to fasten his sword to his side, go back and forth through the camp from gate to gate, and slay his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’”
Verse 28. The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people fell dead.
Verse 29. Afterward, Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for service to the LORD, since each man went against his son and his brother; so the LORD has bestowed a blessing on you this day.”
Verse 30. The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Verse 31. So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made gods of gold for themselves.
Verse 32. Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”
Verse 33. The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot out of My book.
Verse 34. Now go, lead the people to the place I described. Behold, My angel shall go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will punish them for their sin.”
Verse 35. And the LORD sent a plague on the people because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron had made.
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