A reading from the book of Exodus. The Lord said to Moses, go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,

for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,

making for themselves a molten calf and worshipping it, sacrificing to it and crying out,

this is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

The Lord said to Moses, I see how stiff-neck this people is.

Let me alone then, that my wrath, my blaze up against them to consume them, then I will make you

a great nation. But Moses implored the Lord, is God saying, why, O Lord, should your wrath blaze up

against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand.

Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in

the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth?

Let your blazing wrath die down, relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants,

Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, I will make

your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. And all this land that I

promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage. So the Lord relented in the

punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Our fathers made a calf in horrib and adorned a molten image.

They exchanged their glory for the image of grass-eating bullock.

Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people, they forgot the God who had saved them, who had done great deeds

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