6. Know therefore that the Lord your God does not give you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a hard and stubborn people.
7. [Earnestly] remember and forget not how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.
8. Even in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you.
9. When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water.
10. And the Lord delivered to me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
11. And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant.
12. And the Lord said to me, Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image.
13. Furthermore the Lord said to me, I have seen this people, and behold, they are stubborn and hard.
14. Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.
15. So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17. I took the two tables, cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.
18. Then I fell down before the Lord as before, for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
19. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord held against you, enough to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.