Acts 7:38-45

38This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles [divine words that still live] to be handed down to you.

39Our fathers were unwilling to be subject to him [and refused to listen to him]. They rejected him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

40They said to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’

41In those days they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced and celebrated over the works of their hands.

42But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not [really] to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

43You also took along the tabernacle (portable temple) of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship; and I will remove you beyond Babylon [carrying you away into exile].’

44“Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God directed Moses to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

45Our fathers also brought it in [with them into the land] with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, [and so it remained here] until the time of David,