And Aaron said, Do not let the anger of my lord burn. You know the people, that they are set on evil;

For they said to me, Make a god for us who will go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

So I said to them, Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out.

And when Moses saw that the people were without restraint (for Aaron had let them be without restraint to be a derision among those who rise up against them),

Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Whoever is for Jehovah, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him.

And he said to them, Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Let each man put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each man kill his brother, and each man his companion, and each man his neighbor.

And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and that day about three thousand men among the people fell.

And Moses said, Consecrate yourselves today to Jehovah, for every man has been against his son and against his brother, that He may bestow upon you a blessing today.

And on the next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up to Jehovah; perhaps I can make expiation for your sin.

And Moses returned to Jehovah and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin and have made a god of gold for themselves.

And now if only You will forgive their sin; and if not, please blot me out of Your book, which You have written.

And Jehovah said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.

And now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Now My Angel will go before you; nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

And Jehovah struck the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.

Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it.

And I will send an Angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.

And when the people heard this evil word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments.

Now Jehovah had said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people; if I were to go up in your midst for one moment, I would consume you. Now therefore put off your ornaments from you, and I will decide what to do to you.

Thus the children of Israel were stripped of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward.