31
When Moshe saw this, he was amazed at the sight; and as he approached to get a better look, there came the voice of ADONAI,
32
'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov.' But Moshe trembled with fear and didn't dare to look.
33
ADONAI said to him, 'Take off your sandals, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34
I have clearly seen how My people are being oppressed in Egypt, I have heard their cry, and I have come down to rescue them, and now I will send you to Egypt.'
35
"This Moshe, whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and judge?' is the very one whom God sent as both ruler and ransomer by means of the angel that appeared to him in the thorn bush.
36
This man led them out, performing miracles and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.
37
This is the Moshe who said to the people of Isra'el, 'God will raise up a prophet like me from among your brothers'
38
This is the man who was in the assembly in the wilderness, accompanied by the angel that had spoken to him at Mount Sinai and by our fathers, the man who was given living words to pass on to us.
39
"But our fathers did not want to obey him. On the contrary, they rejected him and in their hearts turned to Egypt,
40
saying to Aharon, 'Make us some gods to lead us; because this Moshe, who led us out of Egypt - we don't know what has become of him.'a
41
That was when they made an idol in the shape of a calf and offered a sacrifice to it and held a celebration in honor of what they had made with their own hands.