29. When Moses heard him say this, he left Egypt. He went to live in the land of Midian, where he was a stranger. During the time he lived there, he had two sons.
30. “Forty years later Moses was in the desert near Mount Sinai. An angel appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush.
31. When Moses saw this, he was amazed. He went near to look closer at it. He heard a voice; it was the Lord’s.
32. The Lord said, ‘I am the same God your ancestors had—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses began to shake with fear. He was afraid to look at the bush.
33. “The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, because the place where you are now standing is holy ground.
34. I have seen my people suffer much in Egypt. I have heard my people crying and have come down to save them. Come now, Moses, I am sending you back to Egypt.’
35. “This Moses was the one his people said they did not want. They said, ‘Did anyone say you could be our ruler and judge?’ But he is the one God sent to be a ruler and savior. God sent him with the help of an angel, the one Moses saw in the burning bush.
36. So Moses led the people out of Egypt. He worked wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and then in the desert for 40 years.
37. “This is the same Moses who said these words to the people of Israel: ‘God will give you a prophet. That prophet will come from among your own people. He will be like me.’
38. This same Moses was with the gathering of God’s people in the desert. He was with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and he was with our ancestors. He received life-giving words from God to give to us.
39. “But our ancestors did not want to obey Moses. They rejected him. They wanted to go back to Egypt again.
40. They said to Aaron, ‘Moses led us out of the country of Egypt. But we don’t know what has happened to him. So make some gods to go before us and lead us.’
41. So the people made an idol that looked like a calf. Then they brought sacrifices to it. They were very happy with what they had made with their own hands.
42. But God turned against them and let them continue worshiping the army of false gods in the sky. This is what God says in the book that contains what the prophets wrote: ‘People of Israel, you did not bring me blood offerings and sacrifices in the desert for 40 years;
43. You carried with you the tent for worshiping Moloch and the image of the star of your god Rephan. These were the idols you made to worship. So I will send you away beyond Babylon.’ Amos 5:25-27