And indeed We sent Messengers before you (O Muhammad SAW), and made for them wives and offspring. And it was not for a Messenger to bring a sign except by Allah's Leave. (For) each and every matter there is a Decree (from Allah). 38 Allah effaces whatever He wills and retains whatever He wills. With Him is the Mother of the Book. 39 Whether We show you part of what We have promised them or cause you to pass away [before that], your mission is only to give warning; it is for Us to do the reckoning. 40 Have, then, they [who deny the truth] never yet seen how We visit the earth [with Our punishment,] gradually depriving it of all that is best thereon? For, [when] God judges, there is no power that could repel His judgment: and swift in reckoning is He! 41 Now those who lived before these [sinners] did, too, devise many a blasphemy - but the most subtle devising is that of God, who knows what each human being deserves: and the deniers of the truth will [in time] come to know to whom the future belongs. 42 The unbelievers claim that you have not been sent by Allah. Tell them: "Allah is sufficient as a witness between me and you; and so also do those who know the Scriptures." 43