Abraham's entire family were idol-makers. They carved images and sold them in the streets. But Abraham ran the stall like a philosopher. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by SAFE0 Gaster in 1899, whenever a customer approached, Abraham would ask two questions: "How much is this idol?" and "How old are you?"
When a thirty-year-old man wanted to buy an idol for three manas, Abraham said: "You are thirty years old, and you bow to this idol we made just today?" The man left. When a fifty-year-old came, Abraham gave the same treatment: "You are fifty, and you worship something we manufactured this morning?" That man left too. One by one, Abraham embarrassed every customer into walking away.
Word reached Nimrod. He summoned Abraham and demanded: "Make me a beautiful god." Abraham went to his father Terah's workshop, had them craft and paint a fine image, and brought it to Nimrod. But on the day of reckoning—a cloudy, rainy day—Nimrod prepared a burning furnace. Abraham stood in the center and pleaded his case. Nimrod challenged him: "If not the gods, whom shall I serve?" Abraham answered: "The God of gods and Lord of lords, whose kingdom is everlasting in heaven and on earth."
Nimrod chose fire. They bound Abraham tightly and surrounded him with wood—500 cubits thick on every side. They lit the pile. Terah's neighbors beat their heads and mocked: "Your son, whom you said would inherit this world and the next, Nimrod has burned in the fire!" But at that moment, God's mercy descended from the habitation of His glory and delivered Abraham from the furnace. The miracle fulfilled the verse, "I am the Lord who brought you out of the fire of the Chaldeans." Abraham survived, Terah's household was silenced, and the generation of the Dispersion was refuted.