O ye people! Adore your Guardian-Lord, who created you and those who came before you, that ye may have the chance to learn righteousness; 21 who has made the earth a resting-place for you and the sky a canopy, and has sent down water from the sky and thereby brought forth fruits for your sustenance: do not, then, claim that there is any power that could rival God, when you know [that He is One]. 22 If you are in doubt of what We have revealed to Our votary, then bring a Surah like this, and call any witness, apart from God, you like, if you are truthful. 23 And if you are unable to bring forth (one chapter) – and We declare that you can never bring one – then fear the fire (of hell), the fuel of which is men and stones; kept ready for the disbelievers. 24 But give glad tidings to those who believe and work righteousness, that their portion is Gardens, beneath which rivers flow. Every time they are fed with fruits therefrom, they say: "Why, this is what we were fed with before," for they are given things in similitude; and they have therein companions pure (and holy); and they abide therein (for ever). 25 ۞ God is not ashamed to strike a similitude even of a gnat, or aught above it. As for the believers, they know it is the truth from their Lord; but as for unbelievers, they say, 'What did God desire by this for a similitude?' Thereby He leads many astray, and thereby He guides many; and thereby He leads none astray save the ungodly 26 Who, having sealed it, break God's covenant, dividing what He ordained cohered; and those who spread discord in the land will suffer assuredly. 27 How can you disbelieve in God when you were dead [lifeless] and He gave you life? He will let you die once more, then bring you back to life again, whereupon you will be returned to Him. 28 It is He Who created for you all that is in the earth; then He inclined towards the heaven, therefore fashioning it as proper seven heavens; and He knows everything. 29