And we brought the children of Israel across the sea, and they came to a people who gave themselves up to their idols.  They said, “O Moses! make us a god, as they have gods.”  He said, “Verily, ye are an ignorant people: 

For the worship they practise29 will be destroyed, and that which they do, is vain.”

He said, “Shall I seek any other god for you than God, when it is He who hath preferred you above all other peoples?”

And remember when we rescued you from the people of Pharaoh they had laid on you a cruel affliction; they slew your sons, and let only your daughters live, and in this was a great trial from your Lord.

And we appointed a meeting with Moses for thirty nights, which we completed with ten other nights, so that his whole time with his Lord30 amounted to forty nights.  Then said Moses to his brother Aaron, “Take thou my place among my people, and act rightly, and follow not the way of the corrupt doers.”

And when Moses came at our set time and his Lord spake with him, he said, “O Lord, shew thyself to me, that I may look upon thee.”  He said, “Thou shalt not see Me; but look towards the mount, and if it abide firm in its place, then shalt thou see Me.”  And when God manifested Himself to the mountain he turned it to dust! and Moses fell in a swoon.

And when he came to himself, he said, “Glory be to thee!  To thee do I turn in penitence, and I am the first of them that believe.”

He said, “O Moses! thee above all men have I chosen by my commissions, and by my speaking to thee.  Take therefore what I have brought thee, and be one of those who render thanks.

And we wrote for him upon the tables a monition concerning every matter, and said, “Receive them thyself with steadfastness, and command thy people to receive them for the observance of its most goodly precepts:-I will shew you the abode of the wicked.”

The unjustly proud ones of the earth will I turn aside from my signs, for even if they see every sign they will not believe them; and if they see the path of uprightness, they will not take it for their path, but if they see the path of error, for their path will they take it.

This,-for that they treated our signs as lies, and were heedless of them.

Vain will be the works of those who treated our signs, and the meeting of the life to come, as lies!  Shall they be rewarded but as they have wrought?

And the people of Moses took during his absence a calf made of their ornaments, and ruddy like gold, and lowing.31 Saw they not that it could not speak to them, nor guide them in the way?

Yet they took if for a God and became offenders!

But when they repented, and saw that they had erred, they said, Truly if our Lord have not mercy on us, and forgive us, we shall surely be of those who perish.

And when Moses returned to his people, wrathful, angered, he said, “Evil is it that ye have done next upon my departure.  Would ye hasten on the judgments of your Lord?” And he threw down the tables, and seized his brother by the head and dragged him unto him.  Said he, “Son of my mother! the people thought me weak, and had well nigh slain me.  Make not mine enemies to rejoice over me, and place me not among the wrong doers.”