[And when Moses said to his people, 'My people,] you have done wrong against yourselves, you have diminished its due and its share of the reward and the mentioned self-disclosures, [by your taking the [golden] calf]. Now turn to your Creator, by lifting the first veil, as evidenced by the mention of Him as al-BāriÌ, and slay one another's soul, by the sword of spiritual discipline (riyāḍa) and by denying it [your soul] its shares and the acts that are specifically its, for the purpose of freeing yourselves [from it] and suppressing its caprices, which are the very spirit by which it lives. [If taken] according to the second [sense], the heart inspired the faculties that you diminished what is your due by making the soul the object of your worship, so return to your Creator by the light of His guidance and by means of spiritual discipline prevent your souls from what you are voracious for, by severing them from the life that is temporally originated in them on account of their being overpowered by caprice, so that you might live again in your original life and your repentance be accepted. [That, will be better for you in your Creator's sight'; He will turn to you [relenting]; truly He is the Relenting, the Merciful.]
