We tell you this story for a genuine purpose. They were young people who believed in their Lord and We gave them further guidance. 13 and endowed their hearts with strength, so that they stood up and said [to one another]: "Our Sustainer is the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. Never shall we invoke any deity other than Him: [if we did,] we should indeed have uttered an enormity! 14 These, our people, have taken for themselves gods beside Him - wherefore bring they not for them an authority manifest? and who doth greater wrong than he who fabricateth against God a lie? 15 So, when you have gone apart from them and that they serve, excepting God, take refuge in the Cave, and your Lord will unfold to you of His mercy, and will furnish -- you with a gentle issue of your affair.' 16 ۞ The sun could be observed to incline away from their cave on the right, as it rose, and to turn away from them on the left, when it set, while they lay in the wide space inside the cave. This is one of the signs of God. He whom God guides is rightly guided; but for him whom He lets go astray, you will find no helper or guide. 17