The Story of the Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1-35

One Saturday, Beth was sitting in her room at her little worktable, playing with her modeling clay. She was making a little yellow cow. It was cute and had little horns and udders and everything.
While Beth was playing, her mother came into the room with a load of clean, warm laundry and said, "What are you doing, Beth?"
"I'm making a little yellow cow, Mother," Beth answered.
"I don't think that's a good idea," said Beth's mother. "Remember that God said you shouldn't make pictures or statues of anything in the sky, on the land, or in the water."
"But what harm can a little clay cow do, Mother?" Beth asked.
"Rinse off your hands and come sit with me on your bed, Dear One," her mother said, "and I'll tell you about other people who asked that very question."
And this is the story she told:

One day, Moses was up on top of a mountain talking to God for a long time, so the Hebrews went to Aaron and said, "We have no idea what has happened to Moses. Get up and make us some gods."
Aaron said to them, "Okay. Get your wives' and children's gold earrings and bring them to me."
And when everyone had brought their earrings, Aaron made them into a statue of a baby cow. When he was done, the people said, "Here's the god that helped get us out of Egypt."
Seeing that everyone was happy, Aaron built an altar for the baby cow and said, "Tomorrow will be a feast for the baby cow statue."
The next day, everyone got up early and burned animals and brought presents for the baby cow statue. Then they ate and drank and played games.
Meanwhile, God said to Moses, "You'd better get down off the mountain. The Hebrews have really made a mess of themselves. They made a statue of a baby cow out of gold and are treating it like it's me. Boy are the Hebrews stubborn. Now get out of here because I'm getting mad and I might have to eat all of them. You, on the other hand, I'll still take care of."
"Why are you so upset, God?" said Moses. "Do you want the Egyptians to say that you brought the Hebrews out into the desert just so that you could eat them? Don't be bad. Remember that there have been lots of nice Hebrews, and you promised them that you would make good stuff happen to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and other children."
So God decided not to be bad.
Then Moses went down the mountain with some stone tablets that God had written many important things on. And when he got close, he heard people partying.
When they were near the camp, Moses saw the baby cow statue and the people dancing, and he got mad just like God had and threw the tablets on the ground so that they broke. Then he took the baby cow statue and burned it, ground it into dust, mixed it with water, and made the Hebrews drink it.
After he was done doing all that, Moses went to Aaron and said, "What did the Hebrews ever do to you that you'd make them do such bad stuff?"
"Don't have a cow," Aaron said. "You know how people are. They just can't stay out of trouble. They said, 'Make us gods,' so I made the baby cow statue."
Then Moses noticed that nobody was wearing any clothes so he said, "Everyone who is on God's side, come here." All the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and other children of Levi came over and Moses said to them, "God wants you to kill all the men's brothers, companions, and neighbors with a sword." Levi's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and other children did as they were told and they ended up killing about 3,000 men.
The next day, Moses said to the people who were left, "You did some really bad stuff. Now I have to go to God and apologize."
Moses went back up the hill and said, "Boy did the people blow it big time. They made a gold baby cow statue and worshipped it. Please forgive them. If you don't want to forgive them, then you'll just have to forget about me."
God answered, "I'm going to forget about all the bad people, but not you. Go back down the mountain and lead the people to the land where there are rivers of milk and honey. In a while, I'll visit the Hebrews and do really nasty stuff to them because Aaron made them a gold baby cow statue."

Beth thought about this for a moment. "So you mean that if I wasn't careful about making my little cow, God might have had to kill 3,000 people?" she asked.
"Maybe even more," answered her mother.
Beth stared at her clay. "What can I make models of if I can't make models of things in the sky, on the earth, or in the sea? I couldn't even make a model of a rock."
"Use your imagination, Dear One," her mother said.
Beth sat for a moment in her mother's lap. Then she smiled, hugged her mother, and hopped up. All her questions had been answered and she ran to her work table to make a statue of her kidneys.