And he did what was correct in the eyes of the Lord just as his father Uzziah had done. However, he did not enter the temple of the Lord. But the people continued acting corruptly.
Then the Lord said to him, “Go, get down, and come up, you and Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people force their way through to come up to the Lord, lest He break through against them.”
Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us gods which will go before us. 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.”
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, why does Your wrath burn against Your people, whom You have brought forth from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
He received them from their hand, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’
Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are estranged and backward.
“Seventy weeks have been determined for your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make atonement for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and disaster will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.”
Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They are quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molded image for themselves.”
When the judge died, the people turned back and acted more wickedly than their fathers, pursuing other gods to serve and worship them. They would not give up their practices and obstinate ways.