Moses intercedes

7Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.”

8They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast image of a calf, and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.’

9And Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.”

10Now leave me alone, so that my anger may burn against them and I may consume them; and I will make you into a great nation.

11But Moses pleaded with Yahweh his God and said, “Why, Yahweh, should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand?”

12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent concerning the harm intended for your people.

13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring like the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’

14And Yahweh relented concerning the harm that he had spoken of doing to his people.