2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold earrings which your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”
3 So all the people took off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron.
4 He took the earrings, melted them, poured the gold into a mould, and made a gold bull calf.The people said, “Israel, this is our god, who led us out of Egypt!”
5 Then Aaron built an altar in front of the gold bull calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to honour the Lord.”
6 Early the next morning they brought some animals to burn as sacrifices and others to eat as fellowship offerings. The people sat down to a feast, which turned into an orgy of drinking and sex.
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go back down at once, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have sinned and rejected me.
8 They have already left the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made a bull calf out of melted gold and have worshipped it and offered sacrifices to it. They are saying that this is their god, who led them out of Egypt.