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That, turning away and rejection was, because they said, 'the Fire shall not touch us, except for a number of days', that is, for forty days [only], the length of time their forefathers worshipped the calf, after which it would end; and the lies they used to invent, in their saying this, have deluded them in their religion (wa-gharrahum fī dīnihim, 'it has deluded them in their religion', is semantically connected to mā kānū yaftarūna, 'the lies which they used to invent').