32. ‘I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and did not dare to look.
33. “Then the lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.
34. I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans and have come down to rescue them. Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt.’
35. “So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior.
36. And by means of many wonders and miraculous signs, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years.
37. “Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.’
38. Moses was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness, when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And there Moses received life-giving words to pass on to us.
39. “But our ancestors refused to listen to Moses. They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt.
40. They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’
41. So they made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed to it and celebrated over this thing they had made.
42. Then God turned away from them and abandoned them to serve the stars of heaven as their gods! In the book of the prophets it is written,‘Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offeringsduring those forty years in the wilderness, Israel?
43. No, you carried your pagan gods—the shrine of Molech,the star of your god Rephan,and the images you made to worship them.So I will send you into exileas far away as Babylon.’
44. “Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle with them through the wilderness. It was constructed according to the plan God had shown to Moses.
45. Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it stayed there until the time of King David.
46. “David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob.