Bible Browser

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant^* in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. ¹⁶The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. ¹⁷When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, ‘There is a noise of war in the camp.’ ¹⁸But he said,
‘It is not the sound made by victors,
or the sound made by losers;
it is the sound of revellers that I hear.’
¹⁹As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

21 Moses said to Aaron, ‘What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?’ ²²And Aaron said, ‘Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. ²³They said to me, “Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ²⁴So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off ”; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’

30 On the next day Moses said to the people, ‘You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ ³¹So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. ³²But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.’ ³³But the Lord said to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. ³⁴But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you. Nevertheless, when the day comes for punishment, I will punish them for their sin.’

Psalm 106

A Confession of Israel’s Sins

¹ Praise the Lord!
   O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
   for his steadfast love endures for ever.
¹⁹ They made a calf at Horeb
   and worshipped a cast image.
²⁰ They exchanged the glory of God^*
   for the image of an ox that eats grass.
²¹ They forgot God, their Saviour,
   who had done great things in Egypt,
²² wondrous works in the land of Ham,
   and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.^*
23 Therefore he said he would destroy them—
   had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him,
   to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

The Parable of the Yeast

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with^* three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

The Use of Parables

34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. ³⁵This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:^*
‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
   I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’^*