"When God saw what the people were doing, how they danced and sang about the golden calf, and shouted, 'This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt', He was very angry. Only forty days before they had heard His voice telling them, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image', and they had promised, 'All that the Lord hath spoken we will do', and there they were worshipping a molten god that they had made with their own hands, an image of a calf; as if a calf or anything like it could have sent the ten plagues against Egypt, could have divided the waters of the Red Sea, could have spoken to them the words of the Ten Commandments from the midst of the flaming mountain. So God wanted at first to destroy them altogether, and He said to Moses, who was still with Him on the mountain to learn His law, 'Go; get thee down, for thy people that thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt have dealt corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed unto it and have said, "This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Behold they are a stiff-necked people and my anger is kindled against them, and I will destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation.'" Give the children to understand the cause of Moses' breaking the tablets of the law by making them feel with the despair of Moses, when, descending from the mount with the tablets in his hand, he saw the people in the very act of violating the laws written upon them. Of what use were the tablets of the law if the law itself was not held sacred? Moses' motive for ordering the death of the offenders must be explained as not being due to hatred, but to his realizing that if such a measure were not taken, the rest of the people would be led into further sin, which would necessitate the destruction of the whole people as punishment for their wickedness, just as a surgeon may amputate a limb to save a life. Call attention to the fact that Moses first gives the people a chance to rally about him if they repented of their participation in the worship of the golden calf, a chance of which Aaron and the whole tribe of Levi availed themselves. The purity of Moses' motives is seen from his willingness to accept the same punishment as his people, if God is indisposed to forgive them, rather than enjoy a reward and honor in which they do not share.