Exodus 32:24

Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies;

He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing. You shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”

He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which Yahweh had commanded you.

David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, “Arise! Let’s flee; or else none of us will escape from Absalom. Hurry to depart, lest he overtake us quickly, and bring down evil on us, and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”

You have delivered me from the strivings of the people. You have made me the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known shall serve me.

They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;

Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

They have turned away quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ ”

She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples; and they poured out their prostitution on her.

For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also.

The servant brought out jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and clothing, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious things to her brother and her mother.

“ ‘Don’t turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am Yahweh your God.

The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.

For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore behold, I have come today as the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.”

You also have delivered me from the strivings of my people. You have kept me to be the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known will serve me.

So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?

Then the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled against Job. His wrath was kindled because he justified himself rather than God.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.

Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”

being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers,

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.

For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

Now that no man is justified by the law before God is evident, for, “The righteous will live by faith.”

You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith.

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock, and given them to me.

Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man ask of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.”

“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

You shall most certainly not make gods of silver or gods of gold for yourselves to be alongside me.

You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the children of Israel.

With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, you shall engrave the two stones, according to the names of the children of Israel. You shall make them to be enclosed in settings of gold.

When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.”

Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go, get down; for your people, who you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves!

Yahweh struck the people, because of what they did with the calf, which Aaron made.

They came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought brooches, earrings, signet rings, and armlets, all jewels of gold; even every man who offered an offering of gold to Yahweh.

Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the cattle, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God. We have utterly destroyed the rest.”

Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed Yahweh’s voice, and have gone the way which Yahweh sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine, and killed him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.

Saul said, “Tell David, ‘The king desires no dowry except one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies.’ ” Now Saul thought he would make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.

for he put his life in his hand, and struck the Philistine, and Yahweh worked a great victory for all Israel. You saw it, and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without a cause?”

David came to Baal Perazim, and David struck them there. Then he said, “Yahweh has broken my enemies before me, like the breach of waters.” Therefore he called the name of that place Baal Perazim.

All the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us out of the hand of the Philistines; and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.

The men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, “We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more claim to David than you. Why then did you despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king?” The words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

Joab answered, “Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.

Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

However, Jehu didn’t depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin, the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.

They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.

He himself appointed priests for the high places, for the male goats, and for the calves which he had made.

“Now you intend to withstand the kingdom of Yahweh in the hand of the sons of David. You are a great multitude, and the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods are with you.

Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.

Rejoice in Yahweh, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright.

For he flatters himself in his own eyes, too much to detect and hate his sin.

He brought them out with silver and gold. There was not one feeble person among his tribes.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored for the righteous.

There was no end of all the people, even of all them over whom he was—yet those who come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified.

The blacksmith takes an ax, works in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with his strong arm. He is hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water, and is faint.

Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways,

The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?

You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.

Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says Yahweh of Armies.

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says Yahweh of Armies to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

“Therefore I have also made you contemptible and wicked before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.

Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

“Then they will also answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn’t help you?’

Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God.

He said to him, “Teacher, I have observed all these things from my youth.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, “that you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment.”

As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one.

Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

“I have loved you,” says Yahweh. Yet you say, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” says Yahweh, “Yet I loved Jacob;