The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

For when Moses went up into the mountain, and passed forty days and forty nights in fasting and humiliation, God said to him:—Go down hence quickly, for thy people, whom thou didst bring out of the land of Egypt, have committed iniquity; they have quickly gone aside out of the way which thou didst command them; they have made themselves molten images.

And the Lord said to him:—I have spoken to thee once and twice, saying, I have seen this people, and behold it is stiffnecked; suffer

And Moses said, Not so. Lord; pardon the sin of this people, or blot me also out of the book of the living.

O great love! O unsurpassable perfection! The servant is bold with the Lord, he asks forgiveness for the people, or begs that he himself may be blotted out together with them.