Exodus 32:30-34

Moses, with noble disinterestedness, offers his own life, if he can thereby secure his people's pardon: Jehovah replies that He cannot on these terms take the life of the innocent; but He yields so far as to permit Moses to lead the people on to Canaan, though without His own personal presence. The passage (esp. vv.30, 31) hardly reads as if it had been preceded by in vv.9 14: still, the two passages are so far consistent that whereas in vv.11 13 Moses had only petitioned that the people might not be destroyed, he now petitions for its entire forgiveness.