124لَأُقَطِّعَنَّ أَيدِيَكُم وَأَرجُلَكُم مِن خِلافٍ ثُمَّ لَأُصَلِّبَنَّكُم أَجمَعينَMuhammad Asadmost certainly shall I cut off your hands and your feet in great numbers, because of [your] perverseness, and then I shall most certainly crucify you, in great numbers, all together!"1The grammatical forms la-uqatti'anna and la-usallibannakum must be rendered as "most certainly shall I cut off [your hands and feet] in great numbers" and "crucify you in great numbers": and this indicates that either the repentant sorcerers thus addressed were many or, alternatively, that they had a large following among the people of Egypt. The latter assumption seems to be corroborated by the Biblical reference to the fact that many Egyptians joined the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt: "And a mixed multitude went up also with them" (Exodus xii, 38). As regards my rendering of min khilaf as "because of [your] perverseness", see surah 5, note 44 (last sentence).