26. The next day Moses saw two men fighting, and tried to make peace between them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why are you hurting one another?’
27. But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?
28. You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’
29. When the man said this, Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30. “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
31. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and when he approached to investigate, there came the voice of the Lord,
32. ‘I am the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely.
33. But the Lord said to him, ‘Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34. I have certainly seen the suffering of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’
35. This same Moses they had rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36. This man led them out, performing wonders and miraculous signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
38. This is the man who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, and he received living oracles to give to you.
39. Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him aside and turned back to Egypt in their hearts,
40. saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt – we do not know what has happened to him!’
41. At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf, brought a sacrifice to the idol, and began rejoicing in the works of their hands.