32
‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Trembling with fear, Moses didn't dare to investigate any further.
33
The Lord continued, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34
I have clearly seen the oppression my people have experienced in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Come! I am sending you to Egypt.'
35
“This is the same Moses whom they rejected when they asked, ‘Who appointed you as our leader and judge?' This is the Moses whom God sent as leader and deliverer. God did this with the help of the angel who appeared before him in the bush.
36
This man led them out after he performed wonders and signs in Egypt at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.
37
This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.'
38
This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with our ancestors and with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai. He is the one who received life-giving words to give to us.
39
He's also the one whom our ancestors refused to obey. Instead, they pushed him aside and, in their thoughts and desires, returned to Egypt.
40
They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will lead us. As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him!'
41
That's when they made an idol in the shape of a calf, offered a sacrifice to it, and began to celebrate what they had made with their own hands.
42
So God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the stars in the sky, just as it is written in the scroll of the Prophets: Did you bring sacrifices and offerings to me for forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?