March 14th, 2004, Thursday of the fourth week of Lent.

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 may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great

nation. But Moses implored the Lord, his 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.

The response is, remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Our fathers made a calf in Horib and adored a molten image.

They exchanged their glory for the image of a 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 in Egypt, wondrous

deeds in the land of Ham, terrible things at the Red Sea.

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