And if not for a word that preceded from your Lord, punishment would have been an obligation [due immediately], and [if not for] a specified term [decreed]. 129 (Muhammad), have patience with what they say, glorify your Lord, and always praise Him before sunrise, sunset, in some hours of the night and at both the beginning and end of the day, so that perhaps you will please your Lord. 130 And strain not your eyes in longing for the things We have given for enjoyment to various groups of them (polytheists and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah), the splendour of the life of this world that We may test them thereby. But the provision (good reward in the Hereafter) of your Lord is better and more lasting. 131 And bid thy family to pray, and be thou patient in it; We ask of thee no provision, but it is We who provide thee and the issue ultimate is to godfearing. 132 They ask: "Why does he not bring us a (miraculous) sign from his Lord?" Has there not come to them a Book containing the teachings of the previous scriptures? 133 Had We destroyed them with a chastisement aforetime, they would have said, 'Our Lord, why didst Thou not send us a Messenger, so that we might have followed Thy signs before that we were humiliated and degraded?' 134 Say, "Each [of us] is waiting; so wait. For you will know who are the companions of the sound path and who is guided." 135