While Moses remained on mount Sinai receiving the law from the LORD, the Israelites grew impatient waiting for him to return. They gathered before Aaron and demanded that he make them gods to lead them, since they didn't know what had become of Moses. Aaron told the people to bring him the golden earrings worn by their wives, sons, and daughters, and he took the gold and fashioned it into a molten calf. The people then declared that this calf was the god who had brought them out of Egypt, and Aaron built an altar before it and proclaimed a feast to the LORD. The next day, the people rose early, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, ate and drank, and engaged in disrespectful merrymaking.

The LORD told Moses what was happening in the camp below and expressed His anger at the people's swift corruption, calling them a stiffnecked people. He told Moses to let Him alone so that His wrath might consume them, while offering to make of Moses a great nation. Moses interceded on behalf of the people, pleading with God to remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and reminding Him that the Egyptians would mock Him if He destroyed the people He had just delivered. The LORD relented from what He had talked about doing to His people.

Moses then went down the mountain carrying the two tables of the testimony, written by the finger of God on both sides. As he and Joshua approached the camp, they heard noise. Joshua thought it sounded like war, but Moses recognized it as the sound of singing. When Moses got close and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger exploded, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, scattered it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink it.

Moses confronted Aaron, asking what the people had done to him that he should bring so great a sin upon them. Aaron explained that the people were set on evil and had asked him to make them gods, and he claimed that he had merely cast the gold into the fire and the calf had come out. Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, to their shame among their enemies, and he stood at the gate of the camp calling for those who were on the LORD's side to come to him. All the sons of Levi gathered to him, and Moses instructed them (at the LORD's command) to go through the camp and slay their brothers, companions, and neighbors. About three thousand men fell that day, and Moses told the Levites they had consecrated themselves to the LORD through this act.

The next day, Moses told the people they had sinned a great sin, but he said he would go up to the LORD to seek atonement for them. He returned to the LORD and confessed the people's sin, even offering that God might blot him personally out of His book rather than leave the people unforgiven. The LORD replied that He would blot out of His book only those who had sinned against Him, and He told Moses to lead the people to the place He had spoken of, promising that His Angel would go before them. Yet God also declared that in the day of His visitation He would punish their sin. Exodus 32 closes with the LORD plaguing the people because of the calf that Aaron had made.