Deuteronomy 9:13-29

13Furthermore Yhwh spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

14Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

16And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against Yhwh your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which Yhwh had commanded you.

17And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

18And I fell down before Yhwh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of Yhwh, to provoke him to anger.

19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith Yhwh was wroth against you to destroy you. But Yhwh hearkened unto me at that time also.

20And Yhwh was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.

21And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.

22And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth–hattaavah, ye provoked Yhwh to wrath.

23Likewise when Yhwh sent you from Kadesh–barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of Yhwh your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

24Ye have been rebellious against Yhwh from the day that I knew you.

25Thus I fell down before Yhwh forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because Yhwh had said he would destroy you.

26I prayed therefore unto Yhwh, and said, O Lord Yhwh, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, because Yhwh was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

29Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.