فَٱنطَلَقَا حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَتَيَآ أَهْلَ قَرْيَةٍ ٱسْتَطْعَمَآ أَهْلَهَا فَأَبَوْا۟ أَن يُضَيِّفُوهُمَا فَوَجَدَا فِيهَا جِدَارًا يُرِيدُ أَن يَنقَضَّ فَأَقَامَهُۥ ۖ قَالَ لَوْ شِئْتَ لَتَّخَذْتَ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا
Fantalaqaa hattaaa izaaa atayaaa ahla qaryatinis tat'amaaa ahlahaa fa abaw any yudaiyifoohumaa fawajadaa feehaa jidaarany yureedu any yanqadda fa aqaamah; qaala law shi'ta lattakhazta 'alaihi ajraa
And so they travelled on. Then, when they came to a town and asked the inhabitants for food but were refused hospitality, they saw a wall there that was on the point of falling down and the man repaired it. Moses said, ‘But if you had wished you could have taken payment for doing that.’
So they journeyed on, until they came to the people of a town and asked them for food, but they refused to host them. There they found a wall about to collapse, and he set it upright. Musa said, "If you had wished, you could have taken payment for this."
Arabic lets the wall carry a verb of wanting, since it intends to fall, and commentators have long paused over intention attributed to stone. Musa's third objection costs nobody anything, which sets it apart from the first two: a town that refused them food has its wall set upright for free, and what he raises is the missing wage. He had promised one verse earlier to ask nothing further.