The Treatises of Cyprian

In Exodus the people said to Aaron: “Arise and make us gods which shall go before us: because as for this man Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.” In the same place also Moses says to the Lord: “O Lord, I pray you, this people have sinned! A great sin. They have made to themselves gods of gold and silver. And now, if you will forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book which You have written. And the Lord said unto Moses, If any one has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.” Likewise in Deuteronomy: They sacrificed unto demons, and not unto God. In the book of Judges too: “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and offended the Lord, and forsook God, and served Baal.” Also in the same place: “And the children of Israel added again to do evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baal and the gods of the strangers, and forsook the Lord, and served Him not.” In Malachi: “Judah is forsaken, and has become an abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord in those things wherein He has loved, and courted strange gods. The Lord will cut off the man who does this, and he shall be made base in the tabernacles of Jacob.”