Exodus 32:19-24

Complete Jewish Bible

¹⁹ But the moment Moshe got near the camp, when he saw the calf and the dancing, his own anger blazed up. He threw down the tablets he had been holding and shattered them at the base of the mountain. ²⁰ Seizing the calf they had made, he melted it in the fire and ground it to powder, which he scattered on the water. Then he made the people of Isra’el drink it.

²¹ Moshe said to Aharon, “What did these people do to you to make you lead them into such a terrible sin?” ²² Aharon replied, “My lord shouldn’t be so angry. You know what these people are like, that they are determined to do evil. ²³ So they said to me, ‘Make us gods to go ahead of us; because this Moshe, the man that brought us up from the land of Egypt — we don’t know what has become of him.’ ²⁴ I answered them, ‘Anyone with gold, strip it off!’ So they gave it to me. I threw it in the fire, and out came this calf!”