Rebellion against God’s Punishment

³⁹ After Moses had told all of this to the Israelis, the people deeply mourned. ⁴⁰ So they got up early the next morning and traveled to the top of the mountain, telling themselves, “Look, we’re here and we’re going to go up to the place that the Lord had spoken about, even though we’ve sinned.”

⁴¹ But Moses asked them, “Why do you continue to sin against what the Lord said? Don’t you know that you can never succeed?