6. So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
7. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.
8. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
9. ‘I have seen these people,’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people.
10. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’
11. But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
12. Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.