Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down from this mountain, because your people, the people you brought out of the land of Egypt, have ruined themselves.
Jotham did what the Lord said was right, just as his father Uzziah had done. But Jotham did not enter the Temple of the Lord to burn incense as his father had. But the people continued doing wrong.
The Lord said to him, “Go down and bring Aaron up with you, but don’t allow the priests or the people to force their way through. They must not come up to the Lord, or I will punish them.”
The people saw that a long time had passed and Moses had not come down from the mountain. So they gathered around Aaron and said, “Moses led us out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him. Make us gods who will lead us.”
But Moses begged the Lord his God and said, “Lord, don’t let your anger destroy your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with your great power and strength.
He took the gold from the people and formed it with a tool and made a statue of a calf. Then the people said, “Israel, these are your gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “You and the people you brought out of Egypt must leave this place. Go to the land that I promised with an oath to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give that land to your descendants.’
How terrible! Israel is a nation of sin, a people loaded down with guilt, a group of children doing evil, children who are full of evil. They have left the Lord; they hate God, the Holy One of Israel, and have turned away from him as if he were a stranger.
“God has ordered four hundred ninety years for your people and your holy city for these reasons: to stop people from turning against God; to put an end to sin; to take away evil; to bring in goodness that continues forever; to bring about the vision and prophecy; and to appoint a most holy place.
The people of Israel have gone deep into sin as the people of Gibeah did. The Lord will remember the evil things they have done, and he will punish their sins.
I know that after I die you will become completely evil. You will turn away from the commands I have given you. Terrible things will happen to you in the future when you do what the Lord says is evil, and you will make him angry with the idols you have made.”
Then the Lord told me, “Get up and go down quickly from here, because the people you brought out from Egypt are ruining themselves. They have quickly turned away from what I commanded and have made an idol for themselves.”
But when the judges died, the Israelites again sinned and worshiped other gods. They became worse than their ancestors. The Israelites were very stubborn and refused to change their evil ways.