Exodus 33 & 34
When Moses saw the people worshipping the gold calf, he ran all the rest of the way down the mountain and smashed the calf and ground it into powder. Then he threw the powder into the water and made the people drink it.
Moses turned to Aaron and demanded, “Why have you helped the people do this great sin?” Aaron tried to excuse himself. He said the people told him to make the calf or they would hurt him. They brought him their gold, he said, and when he put it into the fire, it just happened to come out in the shape of a calf. What a wicked thing for Aaron to say!
A terrible punishment from the Lord came upon His people because of their sin. Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said for everyone who was on the Lords side to come and stand there with him. All the men of the tribe of Levi came. He told them to take their swords and to go from one end of the camp to the other killing every man they met. In this way God punished the people for their wickedness. That day the Levites killed about three thousand men.
The next day Moses told the people that although they had sinned so greatly, he would pray for them, and perhaps their sin would be forgiven. So he talked with the Lord about it. He confessed that the people had sinned terribly because they had made the idol and worshipped it, but he begged God to forgive them. But God said no, He would punish those who had sinned. He would not go with them to the Promise Land and He would not give them the cloud to lead them anymore.
Moses begged God to stay with them, and the Lord finally listened to his prayer and promised that He would.
Then God told Moses to make two stone tablets like the ones he had broken, and He would write the Ten Commandments on them again.
He told Moses to come up alone to the top of the mountain in the mourning. No one could be anywhere near the mountain, and no flocks or herds were to gaze there.
So, Moses chipped out two tablets of rock, just like those he had broken, and went up to the top of Mount Sinai early in the morning, carrying the tablets. And the Lord came down in the cloud and passed before him. When Moses heard His voice, he bowed quickly to the earth and worshipped. He prayed again that the Lord would forgive the people of Israel and would let them be His people again.
The Lord accepted Moses’ prayer and took the people back again as His own. He promised that He would do wonderful things for them and drive out the wicked Nations of Canaan to make room for His people to live there instead.
Questions:
What lie did Aaron tell Moses about the gold call?
How did God punish His people?
When Moses asked God to forgive the Israelis, what did God say?
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