Say to My servants that they should (only) say those things that are best: for Satan doth sow dissensions among them: For Satan is to man an avowed enemy. 53 Your Lord knows you very well; if He will, He will have mercy on you, or, if He will, He will chastise you. We sent thee not to be a guardian over them. 54 And your Lord best knows those who are in the heavens and the earth; and certainly We have made some of the prophets to excel others, and to Dawood We gave a scripture. 55 Say: "Call those whom you imagine to be gods besides Him; yet they have no power to relieve you of any distress or to avert it." 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 No city is there, but We shall destroy it before the Day of Resurrection, or We shall chastise it with a terrible chastisement; that is in the Book inscribed. 58 And We remained constrained from sending such signs, because the former people denied them; and We gave the Thamud the she-camel for enlightenment, so they oppressed it; and We do not send such signs except to warn. 59 And when We proclaimed to you, “Indeed all mankind is within the control of your Lord”; and We did not create the spectacle* which We showed you except to try mankind, and the Tree** which is cursed in the Qur’an; and We warn them – so nothing increases for them except extreme rebellion. (* The Ascent of the Holy Prophet to the heavens and beyond, which the disbelievers denied as just a dream. ** The Zakkum tree which will grow in hell and be the food for its inhabitants.) 60