Allah responded, “We have indeed tested your people in your absence, and the Sâmiri has led them astray.” (85) So Moses returned to his people, furious and sorrowful. He said, “O my people! Had your Lord not made you a good promise? 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?”  (86) 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, then we threw it ˹into the fire˺, and so did the Sâmiri.” (87) Then he moulded for them an idol of a calf that made a lowing sound. They said, “This is your god and the god of Moses, but Moses forgot ˹where it was˺!” (88) Did they not see that it did not respond to them, nor could it protect or benefit them? (89)

Moses then asked, “What did you think you were doing, O  Sâmiri?” (95) He said, “I saw what they did not see, so I took a handful ˹of dust˺ from the hoof-prints of ˹the horse of˺ the messenger-angel ˹Gabriel˺ then cast it ˹on the moulded calf˺. This is what my lower-self tempted me into.” (96) Moses said, “Go away then! And for ˹the rest of your˺ life you will surely be crying, ‘Do not touch ˹me˺!’ Then you will certainly have a fate that you cannot escape. Now look at your god to which you have been devoted: we will burn it up, then scatter it in the sea completely.” (97)