Tell My bondmen to speak that which is kindlier. Lo! the devil soweth discord among them. Lo! the devil is for man an open foe. 53 Your Lord is most knowing of you. If He wills, He will have mercy upon you; or if He wills, He will punish you. And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], over them as a manager. 54 Your Lord knows best about everyone in the heavens and on the earth. We gave some prophets more than others: We gave David the Psalms. 55 SAY: "Call upon those [beings] whom you imagine [to be endowed with divine powers] beside Him and [you will find that] they have it not in their power to remove any affliction from you, or to shift it [elsewhere]." 56 Those unto whom they cry seek the way of approach to their Lord, which of them shall be the nearest; they hope for His mercy and they fear His doom. Lo! the doom of thy Lord is to be shunned. 57 There is no village except that it shall be destroyed or that We will punish it with a stern punishment before the Day of Resurrection. That is inscribed in the Book. 58 And nothing has prevented Us from sending [this message, like the earlier ones,] with miraculous signs [in its wake,] save [Our knowledge] that the people of olden times [only too often] gave the lie to them: thus, We provided for [the tribe of] Thamud the she-camel as a light-giving portent, and they sinned against it. And never did We send those signs for any other purpose than to convey a warning. 59 When We said to you: 'Indeed, your Lord encompasses all people' We did not make the vision which We showed to you, and the tree cursed in the Koran except to be a trial for people, and We frighten them, but it only increases them in great insolence. 60