O MANKIND! Worship your Sustainer, who has created you and those who lived before you, so that you might remain conscious of Him 21 who has made the earth a resting-place for you and the sky a canopy, and has sent down water from the sky and thereby brought forth fruits for your sustenance: do not, then, claim that there is any power that could rival God, when you know [that He is One]. 22 If you are in doubt about the revelation We have sent down to Our servant, then produce a single chapter like it, and call upon your helpers besides God, if you are truthful. 23 And if you do not -- and you will not -- then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for unbelievers. 24 Bear glad tidings to those who believe and do good works. They shall live in Gardens underneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are given fruit as provision they will say: 'This is what we were given before,' for they shall be given in resemblance. Therein they shall have pure spouses, and shall live there for ever. 25 ۞ Behold, God does not disdain to propound a parable of a gnat, or of something [even] less than that. Now, as for those who have attained to faith, they know that it is the truth from their Sustainer - whereas those who are bent on denying the truth say: "What could God mean by this parable?" In this way does He cause many a one to go astray, just as He guides many a one aright: but none does He cause thereby to go astray save the iniquitous, 26 such as break the covenant of God after its solemn binding, and such as cut what God has commanded should be joined, and such as do corruption in the land -- they shall be the losers. 27 How can you disbelieve in Allah when you were lifeless and He brought you to life; then He will cause you to die, then He will bring you [back] to life, and then to Him you will be returned. 28 He it is Who created for you all that there is on the Earth; He then turned to the sky and ordered it into seven heavens. And He has full knowledge of everything. 29