8. Even at 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 to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.
10. The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11. It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
12. Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made a molten image for themselves.'
13. The Lord spoke further to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed, it is a stubborn people.
14. Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.'
15. "So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
16. And I saw that you had indeed 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 hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands and smashed them before your eyes.
18. I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.
19. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you in order to destroy you, but the Lord listened to me that time also.