When We let the people taste mercy after hardship has visited them, lo, they have a device concerning Our signs. Say: 'God is swifter at devising; surely Our messengers are writing down what you are devising.' 21 When you are rejoicing in a boat, a favorable breeze and a violent storm arises with waves surrounding you from all sides. Thinking that you will not survive, you start to pray sincerely to God. In prayer, you say, "If You rescue us from this we shall certainly be grateful". 22 Then when He rescues them, they start wrongfully committing oppression in the earth; O mankind! Your oppression is only a torment against yourselves; derive the benefit until you live in this world; you have then to return to Us and thereupon We shall show you your misdeeds. 23 The life of the world is like the water which We send down from the sky, and which is absorbed by the plants of the earth, from which men and cattle eat. But when the earth has taken on its finest appearance, and looks beautiful, and its people think they have it under their control, then by day or by night, Our command comes to it and We convert it into a field of stubble, as if nothing had existed there the day before. Thus We make plain Our revelations for those who reflect. 24 Allah invites you to the House of Peace. He guides whom He will to a Straight Path 25 ۞ Those who do good works shall have a good reward and more besides. No darkness and no ignominy shall cover their faces. They are destined for Paradise wherein they shall dwell forever. 26 And (as for) those who have earned evil, the punishment of an evil is the like of it, and abasement shall come upon them-- they shall have none to protect them from Allah-- as if their faces had been covered with slices of the dense darkness of night; these are the inmates of the fire; in it they shall abide. 27 On the Day when We gather them all together, We shall say to those who ascribed partners to God, "Keep to your places, you and your partners!" Then We shall separate them from one another and their partner-gods will say, "It was not us that you worshipped. 28 “Therefore Allah suffices as a Witness between us and you, that we were not even aware that you worshipped us!” 29 Then each will see what he had done in the past; and they will turn to God, their true Lord, and all the lies they had fabricated will be of no avail to them. 30