So Moses returned to his people, furious and sorrowful. He said, “O my people! Had your Lord not made you a good promise?1 Has my absence been too long for you? Or have you wished for wrath from your Lord to befall you, so you broke your promise to me?”2
They argued, “We did not break our promise to you of our own free will, but we were made to carry the burden of the people’s ˹golden˺ jewellery,1 then we threw it ˹into the fire˺, and so did the Sâmiri.”