۞ We created you from the earth and will revert you back to it; and raise you up from it a second time. 55 So We showed him (Pharaoh) Our signs, all of them, but he belied and refused them. 56 He said: "Have you come to us to drive us out of our land by your sorcery? 57 "But we can surely produce magic to match thine! So make a tryst between us and thee, which we shall not fail to keep - neither we nor thou - in a place where both shall have even chances." 58 'Your tryst shall be upon the Feast Day.' said Moses. 'Let the people be mustered at the high noon.' 59 So Pharaoh withdrew, devised his stratagem and returned. 60 Moses said to the magicians summoned by Pharaoh, "Woe to you! Do not invent a lie against Allah or He will exterminate you with a punishment; and he has failed who invents [such falsehood]." 61 So they discussed their strategy among themselves and conferred privately, 62 and said, "These two people are magicians. They want to expel you from your land through their magic and to destroy your own tradition. 63 Bring together your devices and come forward in ranks; the winner will, certainly, have great happiness". 64 They said, "O Moses, either you throw or we will be the first to throw." 65 He said: Nay! cast down. then lo! their cords and their rods-- it was imaged to him on account of their magic as if they were running. 66 and in his heart Moses became apprehensive. 67 We said to him: "Fear not. You will certainly be victorious. 68 And [now] throw that [staff] which is in thy right hand - it shall swallow up all that they have wrought: [for] they have wrought only a sorcerer's artifice, and the sorcerer can never come to any good, whatever he may aim at!" 69 Then the magicians were cast down prostrate; they said: we believe in the Lord of Musa and Harun. 70 Pharaoh said, 'Have you believed him before I gave you leave? Why, he is the chief of you, the same that taught you sorcery; I shall assuredly cut off alternately your hands and feet, then I shall crucify you upon the trunks of palm-trees; you shall know of a certainty which of us is more terrible in chastisement, and more abiding.' 71 They said: We do not prefer you to what has come to us of clear arguments and to He Who made us, therefore decide what you are going to decide; you can only decide about this world's life. 72 As for us, behold, we have come to believe in our Sustainer, [hoping] that He may forgive us our faults and all that magic unto which thou hast forced us: for God is the best [to look forward to,] and the One who is truly abiding." 73 Indeed the one who comes guilty to his Lord – so undoubtedly for him is hell; neither dying nor living in it. 74 But for whosoever comes before Him as a believer and having done good works there awaits the most highest degree; 75 Gardens of Eden with rippling streams, where he will live for ever. This is the recompense of those who achieve integrity. 76