¹ These are the words of the agreement which Moses was ordered by the Lord to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the agreement which he made with them in Horeb.

² And Moses said in the hearing of all Israel, You have seen all the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and all his land;

³ The great tests which your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders:

⁴ But even to this day the Lord has not given you a mind open to knowledge, or seeing eyes or hearing ears.

⁵ For forty years I have been your guide through the waste land: your clothing has not become old on your backs, or your shoes on your feet.

⁶ You have had no bread, or wine, or strong drink: so that you might see that I am the Lord your God.

⁷ When you came to this place, Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, came out to make war against us and we overcame them:

⁸ And we took their land and gave it to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, for their heritage.

⁹ So keep the words of this agreement and do them, so that it may be well for you in everything you do.

¹⁰ You have come here today, all of you, before the Lord your God; the heads of your tribes, the overseers, and those who are in authority over you, with all the men of Israel,

¹¹ And your little ones, your wives, and the men of other lands who are with you in your tents, down to the wood-cutter and the servant who gets water for you:

¹² With the purpose of taking part in the agreement of the Lord your God, and his oath which he makes with you today:

¹³ And so that he may make you his people today, and be your God, as he has said to you, and as he made an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴ And not with you only do I make this agreement and this oath;

¹⁵ But with everyone who is here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with those who are not here:

¹⁶ (For you have in mind how we were living in the land of Egypt; and how we came through all the nations which were on your way;

¹⁷ And you have seen their disgusting doings, and the images of wood and stone and silver and gold which were among them:)

¹⁸ So that there may not be among you any man or woman or family or tribe whose heart is turned away from the Lord our God today, to go after other gods and give them worship; or any root among you whose fruit is poison and bitter sorrow;

¹⁹ If such a man, hearing the words of this oath, takes comfort in the thought that he will have peace even if he goes on in the pride of his heart, taking whatever chance may give him:

²⁰ The Lord will have no mercy on him, but the wrath of The Lord will be burning against that man, and all the curses recorded in this book will be waiting for him, and The Lord will take away his name completely from the earth.

²¹ He will be marked out by the Lord, from all the tribes of Israel, for an evil fate, in keeping with all the curses of the agreement recorded in this book of the law.

²² And future generations, your children coming after you, and travellers from far countries, will say, when they see the punishments of that land and the diseases which the Lord has sent on it;

²³ And that all the land is a salt and smoking waste, not planted or giving fruit or clothed with grass, but wasted like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, on which the Lord sent destruction in the heat of his wrath:

²⁴ Truly all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land? what is the reason for this great and burning wrath?

²⁵ Then men will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he took them out of the land of Egypt:

²⁶ And they went after other gods and gave them worship, gods who were strange to them, and whom he had not given them:

²⁷ And so the wrath of the Lord was moved against this land, to send on it all the curse recorded in this book:

²⁸ Rooting them out of their land, in the heat of his wrath and passion, and driving them out into another land, as at this day.

²⁹ The secret things are the Lord our God's: but the things which have been made clear are ours and our children's for ever, so that we may do all the words of this law.

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him."

² Aaron said to them, "Take off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me."

³ All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.

⁴ He received what they handed him, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said, "These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt."

⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh."

⁶ They rose up early on the next day, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

⁷ Yahweh spoke to Moses, "Go, get down; for your people, who you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!

⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.'"

⁹ Yahweh said to Moses, "I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.

¹⁰ Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation."

¹¹ Moses begged Yahweh his God, and said, "Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

¹² Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'He brought them forth for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?' Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people.

¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

¹⁴ Yahweh repented of the evil which he said he would do to his people.

¹⁵ Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.

¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tables.

¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is the noise of war in the camp."

¹⁸ He said, "It isn't the voice of those who shout for victory, neither is it the voice of those who cry for being overcome; but the noise of those who sing that I hear."

¹⁹ It happened, as soon as he came near to the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses' anger grew hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain.

²⁰ He took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it on the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

²¹ Moses said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you, that you have brought a great sin on them?"

²² Aaron said, "Don't let the anger of my lord grow hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil.

²³ For they said to me, 'Make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him.'

²⁴ I said to them, 'Whoever has any gold, let them take it off:' so they gave it to me; and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf."

²⁵ When Moses saw that the people had broken loose, (for Aaron had let them loose for a derision among their enemies),

²⁶ then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Whoever is on Yahweh's side, come to me!" All the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him.

²⁷ He said to them, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'"

²⁸ The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

²⁹ Moses said, "Consecrate yourselves today to Yahweh, yes, every man against his son, and against his brother; that he may bestow on you a blessing this day."

³⁰ It happened on the next day, that Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to Yahweh. Perhaps I shall make atonement for your sin."

³¹ Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold.

³² Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin--and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written."

³³ Yahweh said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

³⁴ Now 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 punish, I will punish them for their sin."

³⁵ Yahweh struck the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.