Terah made five new gods and handed them to his son. "Sell these in the street," he said.
Abraham loaded the idols onto his father's donkey and set off toward the marketplace. On the road he encountered a caravan of merchants from Fandana in Syria, traveling with camels toward Egypt to trade. Abraham struck up a conversation with them.
Then one of their camels groaned. A low, guttural sound. The donkey panicked, bolted sideways, and threw the gods to the ground. Three of the five idols smashed to pieces on the road. Two survived.
The Syrian merchants saw what had happened and rushed over. "Why didn't you tell us you had gods for sale? We would have bought them before the donkey spooked! Give us the two that survived, and we'll pay you for all five, broken ones included."
Abraham took their money. Then he gathered the three shattered idols and carried them to the river Gur. He cast them into the water. They sank to the bottom and vanished.
He stood at the riverbank and watched. No divine hand reached up to save them. No miracle restored them. They were stone. They sank. They were gone.
Five gods that could not survive a startled donkey. Three gods that drowned without protest. Abraham brought the silver home to his father, but the question in his mind was already sharpening into certainty: these things his father carved were nothing.