Exodus 32 : The Golden Calf
While Moses was in the mountain with God, the people ask Aaron about Moses and tell him to make a god for them to worship. Aaron makes a golden calf for the people and they start worshiping it and host a festival of merriment.
God tells Moses about this and tells that God will strike down on the people. Moses begs God and says that God must forgive the people. After all, God got them out of Egypt and if they are killed, everyone would say God used his might to bring people out of Egypt only to kill them in the desert.
Moses comes down the mountains, sees the people worshiping the calf and is furious. He breaks the tablets, burns the calf and makes it into powder, makes the people drink the water with this powder. Moses then asks everyone who is with God to stand by him. The Levites stand with him. Moses asks them to go and kill the others. That day 3000 people are killed. Moses says to the Levites "Today you have consecrated yourselves as priests in the service of the LORD by killing your sons and brothers, so the LORD has given you his blessing."
Moses then goes up the mountain and asks forgiveness from God for the people's sins. God tells that he will punish those who sinned, not by taking away their life but by sending down a plague.
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