32 Meanwhile, the people saw that Moses was taking a long time coming down from the mountain.+ So the people gathered around Aaron and said to him: “Get up, make for us a god who will go ahead of us,+ because we do not know what has happened to this Moses, the man who led us up out of the land of Egypt.”

4 Then he took the gold from them, and he formed it with an engraving tool and made it into a statue* of a calf.+ They began to say: “This is your God, O Israel, who led you up out of the land of Egypt.”+

25 When Israel was dwelling in Shitʹtim,+ the people started to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moʹab.+ 2 The women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods,+ and the people began to eat and to bow down to their gods.+

42 So God turned away from them and handed them over to offer sacred service to the army of heaven,+ just as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘It was not to me that you made offerings and sacrifices for 40 years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?