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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.
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"But our fathers did not want to obey him. On the contrary, they rejected him and in their hearts turned to Egypt,
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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
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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.
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So God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the starsb - as has been written in the book of the prophets, 'People of Isra'el, it was not to me that you offered slaughtered animals and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness!
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No, you carried the tent of Molekh and the star of your god Reifan, the idols you made so that you could worship them. Therefore, I will send you into exile beyond Bavel.'
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"Our fathers had the Tent of Witness in the wilderness. It had been made just as God, who spoke to Moshe, had ordered it made, according to the pattern Moshe had seen.
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Later on, our fathers who had received it brought it in with Y'hoshua when they took the Land away from the nations that God drove out before them. "So it was until the days of David.
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He enjoyed God's favor and asked if he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Ya'akov
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and Shlomo did build him a house.
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But Ha'Elyon does not live in places made by hand! As the prophet says,