Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

As Moses and Joshua came down from the mountain and were
nearing the camp, they saw the people shouting and dancing around
their idol--a scene of heathen riot, an imitation of the idolatrous
feasts of Egypt. How different from the solemn and reverent
worship of God! Moses was overwhelmed. He had just come from
the presence of God's glory, and he was unprepared for that dreadful
display of Israel's degraded condition. To show his horror at their
crime, he threw down the tablets of stone, and they were broken in
view of all the people, a sign that as they had broken their covenant
with God, so God had broken His covenant with them.
Moses Punishes the Wrongdoers
Taking hold of the idol, Moses threw it into the fire. Afterward
he ground it to powder and scattered it on the stream that came
down from the mountain. In this way he showed the utter
worthlessness of the god they had been worshiping.
The great leader summoned his guilty brother. Aaron tried to
defend himself by relating the clamors of the people, stating that if
he had not done as they asked he would have been put to death.
"They said to me, 'Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this
Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not
know what has become of him.' And I said to them, 'Whoever has
any gold, let them break it off.' So they gave it to me, and I cast it
into the fire, and this calf came out." He wanted Moses to believe
that a miracle had taken place--that the gold changed to a calf by
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