“Pardon This People”

¹³But Moses said to the LORD, "The Egyptians will hear about it! After all, you used your power to bring this people out from among them." ¹⁴"And they will tell the people living in this land. They've already heard that you, LORD, are among this people — that you, LORD, are seen face to face, that your cloud stands over them, and that you go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." ¹⁵"If you kill all these people at once, the nations that have heard about you will say," ¹⁶"'The LORD wasn't able to bring these people into the land he promised them, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.'" ¹⁷"So now, I beg you, let the power of the Lord be displayed in its greatness, just as you declared when you said," ¹⁸The LORD is slow to anger and has great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the 3rd and 4th generation. ¹⁹Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to your great mercy, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. ²⁰The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked."