Set forth to them the instance of the people of the city4 when the Sent Ones
came to it.

When we sent two unto them and they charged them both with imposture-
therefore with a third we strengthened them: and they said, "Verily we are
the Sent unto you of God."

They said, "Ye are only men like us: Nought hath the God of Mercy sent down.
Ye do nothing but lie."

They said, "Our Lord knoweth that we are surely sent unto you;

To proclaim a clear message is our only duty."

They said, "Of a truth we augur ill from you:5 if ye desist not we will
surely stone you, and a grievous punishment will surely befall you from us."

They said, "Your augury of ill is with yourselves. Will ye be warned?6 Nay,
ye are an erring people."

Then from the end of the city a man came running:7 He said, "O my people!
follow the Sent Ones;

Follow those who ask not of you a recompense, and who are rightly guided.

And why should I not worship Him who made me, and to whom ye shall be brought
back?

Shall I take gods beside Him? If the God of Mercy be pleased to afflict me,
their intercession will not avert from me aught, nor will they deliver:

Truly then should I be in a manifest error.

Verily, in your Lord have I believed; therefore hear me."8

-It was said to him, "Enter thou into Paradise:" And he said, "Oh that my
people knew

How gracious God hath been to me, and that He hath made me one of His
honoured ones."

But no army sent we down out of heaven after his death, nor were we then
sending down our angels-

There was but one shout from Gabriel, and lo! they were extinct.

Oh! the misery that rests upon my servants! No apostle cometh to them but
they laugh him to scorn.

See they not how many generations we have destroyed before them?

Not to false gods is it that they shall be brought9 back,

But all, gathered together, shall be set before Us.

Moreover, the dead earth is a sign to them: we quicken it and bring forth the
grain from it, and they eat thereof:

And we make in it gardens of the date and vine; and we cause springs to gush
forth in it;

That they may eat of its fruits and of the labour of their hands. Will they
not therefore be thankful?

Glory be to Him, who hath created all the sexual pairs of such things as
Earth produceth,10 and of mankind themselves; and of things beyond their ken!

A sign to them also is the Night. We withdraw the day from it, and lo! they
are plunged in darkness;

And the Sun hasteneth to her place of rest. This, the ordinance of the
Mighty, the Knowing!

And as for the Moon, We have decreed stations for it, till it change like an
old and crooked palm branch.

To the Sun it is not given to overtake the Moon, nor doth the night outstrip
the day; but each in its own sphere doth journey on.

It is also a sign to them that we bare their posterity in the full-laden Ark;

And that we have made for them vessels like it on which they embark;

And if we please, we drown them, and there is none to help them, and they are
not rescued,

Unless through our mercy, and that they may enjoy themselves for yet awhile.

And when it is said to them, Fear what is before you and what is behind
you,11 that ye may obtain mercy. . . .

Aye, not one sign from among the signs of their Lord dost thou bring them,
but they turn away from it!

And when it is said to them, Give alms of what God hath bestowed on you,12
they who believe not say to the believers, "Shall we feed him whom God can
feed if He will? Truly ye are in no other than a plain error."

And they say, "When will this promise be fulfilled, if what ye say be true?"



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