18. Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him.
19. For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger that threatened to destroy you. But he listened to me this time as well.
20. The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him too.
21. As for your sinful thing that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.
22. Moreover, you continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-Hattaavah.
23. And when he sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, “Go up and possess the land I have given you,” you rebelled against the Lord your God and would neither believe nor obey him.
24. You have been rebelling against him from the very first day I knew you!
25. I lay flat on the ground before the Lord for forty days and nights, for he had said he would destroy you.
26. I prayed to him: O, Lord God, do not destroy your people, your valued property that you have powerfully redeemed, whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength.