Said Pharaoh, “Believe ye on him ere I give you leave? He, in sooth, is your Master who hath taught you magic. I will therefore cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will crucify you on trunks of the palm, and assuredly shall ye learn which of us is severest in punishing, and who is the more abiding.”¹⁴

They said, “We will not have more regard to thee than to the clear tokens which have come to us, or than to Him who hath made us: doom the doom thou wilt: Thou canst only doom as to this present life: of a truth we have believed on our Lord that he may pardon us our sins and the sorcery to which thou hast forced us, for God is better, and more abiding than thou.¹⁵

As for him who shall come before his Lord laden with crime—for him verily is Hell: he shall not die in it and he shall not live.

But he who shall come before Him, a believer, with righteous works,—these! the loftiest grades await them:

Gardens of Eden, beneath whose trees¹⁶ the rivers flow: therein shall they abide for ever. This, the reward of him who hath been pure.”

Then revealed we to Moses, “Go forth by night with my servants and cleave for them a dry path in the sea;

Fear not thou to be overtaken, neither be thou afraid.”

And Pharaoh followed them with his hosts, and the whelming billows of the sea overwhelmed them,¹⁷ for Pharaoh misled his people, and did not guide them.

O children of Israel! we rescued you from your foes; and We appointed a meeting with you on the right side of the mountain; and We caused the manna and the quail to descend upon you:

“Eat,” said We, “of the good things with which we have supplied you; but without excess, lest my wrath fall upon you; for on whom my wrath doth fall, he perisheth outright.

Surely however will I forgive him who turneth to God and believeth, and worketh righteousness, and then yieldeth to guidance.

But what hath hastened thee on apart from thy people,¹⁸ O Moses?”

He said, “They are hard on my footsteps: but to thee, O Lord, have I hastened, that thou mightest be well pleased with me.”

He said, “Of a truth now have we proved thy people since thou didst leave them, and Samiri¹⁹ had led them astray.”

And Moses returned to his people, angered, sorrowful.

He said, “O my people! did not your Lord promise you a good promise? Was the time of my absence long to you? or desired ye that wrath from your Lord should light upon you, that ye failed in your promise to me?”

They said, “Not of our own accord have we failed in the promise to thee, but we were made to bring loads of the people’s trinkets, and we threw them into the fire—and Samiri likewise cast them in, and brought forth to them a corporeal lowing²⁰ calf: and they said, “This is your God and the God of Moses, whom he hath forgotten.”’

What! saw they not that it returned them no answer, and could neither hurt nor help them?