(18:75) [Al-Khidh r] said, "Did I not tell you that with me you would never be able to have patience?" (18:76) [Moses] said, "If I should ask you about anything after this, then do not keep me as a companion. You have obtained from me an excuse." (18:77) So they set out, until when they came to the people of a town, they asked its people for food, but they refused to offer them hospitality. And they found therein a wall about to collapse, so al-Khidh r restored it. [Moses] said, "If you wished, you could have taken for it a payment." (18:78) [Al-Khidh r] said, "This is parting between me and you. I will inform you of the interpretation of that about which you could not have patience. (18:79) As for the ship, it belonged to poor people working at sea. So I intended to cause defect in it as there was after them a king who seized every [good] ship by force. (18:80) And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. (18:81) So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.
