Exodus 32 | GEB-a-diah and some Good Ol'-Fashioned Kinslayin'

The Israelites wondered what Moses was doing on the mountain for so long and gathered around Aaron asking him to make gods who would actually show up.

"Take the gold earrings your wives and kids are wearing and give 'em to me," said Aaron.  The people brought the gold to him and he fashioned a calf out of it.  "This is your god," he said, "who brought you out of Egypt."

What a load of bull.

Aaron built an altar in front of the calf and announced a festival to the Golden Earring Babycowgod (hereafter referred to as GEB-a-diah) would happen the next day and the Israelites woke up early and burnt offerings to GEB-a-diah and did other stuff folks do when they collectively decide to worship a god made of earrings for some reason.

God knew what was going on and told Moses to skidattle.  "Your people are being stupid again," he said.  "They made a GEB-a-diah, even though I specifically told 'em not to.  I'm going to smite them all and make YOU a great nation."

"Hold up, there, Smitey McSmiteypants," Moses intervened.  "What will the Egyptians think?  They'll be all like, 'Their god was evil; he brought 'em out of slavery just to kill 'em in the desert after decades of aimless meandering.'  Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jake?  They were cool cats, right?  I mean, Jake started off as a scumbag but y'know, he got better."

And God, changing his mind, said "yeah, you're right," and refrained from yet another divine smackdown.

Moses went back down the mountain with the two tablets (which were inscribed front and back).  When Josh heard the noise in the distance from the Israelites, he feared there was war going on in the camp.

"Nah," Moses said.  "That's just singin'."  But, y'know, he said it more poetically for some reason.

If it's a road, it's been traveled.  You need a path, or like, trail, or something.

As Moses approached the camp, he got pissed off 'cause he saw the GEB-a-diah.  He threw the tablets and they broke to pieces at the foot of the mountain.  He burned the GEB-a-diah, ground the remnants into powder, threw the powder into the water, and made the Israelites drink it, continuing the long-standing Israelite tradition of questionable water consumption.

"Aaron," he asked, "what did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"

"Don't be mat at them," Aaron replied.  "You know how prone they are to evildoin'.  They wanted a god that came before them and didn't know what had happened to you, so I told 'em to hock off their jewelry to me and I threw it in the fire.  Out popped the GEB-a-diah."

Moses stood at the entrance to the camp and said "whoever is for the LORD, come to me."  All the Levites rallied over to him.

Then, with no clear evidence of the LORD saying such a thing, Moses declared the following:

"The LORD says:  'Each man strap a sword to his side.  Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"

Punishment for rape:  marry your victim.  Punishment for worshiping a GEB-a-diah made of earrings: being made to mindlessly slaughter three thousand people you love.  Truly disturbing: mindlessly slaughtering people you love without question.

So off they went, hacking and slashing away at their homies and families.  About three thousand were decomposing in the sand ere day's end.

Moses painted half his face blue and gave a rally speech.  "You've been set apart to God today, for you were against your own sons and brothers and he's allowed you to live.  You have committed a great sin, but I'll go talk to God and see if I can make atonement for it."

So Wallace Moses climbed back up the mountain, where God was still dumbfounded at the sin they committed of murderously slaying their friends, families, and neighbors with no provocation whatsoever except the hearsay from an old man about what an invisible entity happened to tell him bowing down to a god that had the courtesy to show up to all of them.

"Look, they messed up," said Moses.  "But forgive them, okay?  If not, then blot me out of the book you've written."

"I'll blot out the folks who have sinned against me," replied God.  "Go, lead the people to that place I toldja about.  My angel will lead you.  When the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin."

The LORD struck the people with an unspecified, but almost certainly terrible, plague beacuse of their idolatry.