God said to Moses, “Since you broke the first tablets, we’ll have to do this all over again. Cut two more tablets and meet me on the mountain in the morning. Come alone.” So Moses went, and God started talking about how loving and forgiving he could be if only the humans would behave themselves. He said, “I hate sinners and I will punish them until they’re dead. Then I’ll punish their children and their grandchildren. I figure by the fourth generation I’ll have probably grown bored.

“So here’s what we’ll do,” he continued. “I’ll get rid of all the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And when you guys get there, you’ll tear down their pillars and altars because I’ve changed my name to Jealous and I don’t want you worshiping any other gods. And let’s just do a quick review since you people are pretty stupid and can’t seem to remember simple rules.” So God repeated all the rules from before, which took another forty days and forty nights during which Moses didn’t have anything to eat or drink.

When Moses came down from the mountain, his face was glowing because he’d been talking to God. He told everyone what God had said, and then he put a veil over his shiny face. From that point on, Moses would remove the veil whenever he chatted with God, and after relaying God’s message to the people he would put it back on again.

Original text

After all that, God was ready to move on. He told Moses, “Get moving toward that land I promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I’ll send an angel before you and drive out all the jerks already living there. I’m not going with you though. I don’t like you all very much and I’m pretty sure I’ll end up killing you if I have to spend another minute with you.” When the people heard this, they got really upset and for some reason took off all their jewelry.

Original text

I went to the rally in Washington, DC on Saturday. It was crazy and crowded and a little stressful, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I loved all the signs and took pictures whenever I could. (The last one is me, looking terrific after an all-night car ride.)

The people went to Aaron and said, “Your stupid brother brought us out here to the desert, then he went up into a mountain and we haven’t seen him since. We need you to make us some gods.” So Aaron gathered up everyone’s gold and made a calf out of it with a graving tool. Everyone suddenly became convinced the cow brought them out of Egypt and they decided to have a feast in its honor. God told Moses he’d better watch out because the Israelites were about to die a fiery and wrathful death, but Moses pleaded with him and said people were going to think he just brought them to the desert to kill them. God didn’t like people to gossip about him, so he decided not to kill anyone that day.

Moses took his tablets of testimony and finally came down from the mountain. When he got to camp, he found the people singing to the stupid calf. He threw down the tablets, breaking them, and then destroyed the damn thing. He asked Aaron what he could possibly have been thinking, and Aaron was all, “These people were evil! They demanded a god, so I took their gold and threw it in the fire, and that cow was what came out!”

Moses looked around and saw that the whole camp was in chaos. He announced that everyone who wanted to be on Team God should gather around him, but only the Levites came. Moses told them to take their swords and start killing. So that’s what they did. About three thousand people died, but that wasn’t enough for God. He sent down a plague for good measure and promised this sin would be visited upon them again one day.

Original text

I’m sorry, but all of this is incredibly boring. More rules about what people are supposed to wear, how to collect taxes, how to burn incense. I’m skipping to more interesting things.

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