O you assembly of jinns and men, did not apostles come to you from among you, communicating My signs to you, bringing warnings of this your day (of Doom)?" They will answer: "We bear witness to our sins." They were surely deluded by the life of the world, and bore witness against themselves because they were unbelievers. 130 This is because your Lord would not destroy the (populations of) towns for their wrong-doing (i.e. associating others in worship along with Allah) while their people were unaware (so the Messengers were sent). 131 And for everyone are ranks from what they do; and your Lord is not unaware of their deeds. 132 Your Lord is the self-sufficient One, the merciful. If He wills, He can take you away and replace you by anyone He pleases, just as He raised you from the offspring of other people. 133 That which you are promised shall surely come to pass and you cannot prevent it. 134 Say: "O my [unbelieving] people! Do yet all that may be within your power, [while] I, behold, shall labour [in God's way]; and in time you will come to know to whom the future belongs. Verily, never will evildoers attain to a happy state!" 135 They assign to Allah a portion out of the produce and cattle that He has created, saying out of their fancy: 'This is for Allah' - so they deem -'and this is for the associates (of Allah) whom we have contrived.' Then, the portion assigned to the beings whom they have set up as associates (of Allah) does not reach Allah, but the portion assigned to Allah reaches the beings they set up as associates (of Allah)! Indeed evil is what they decide! 136 And in like manner, their associate gods have made killing their children seem fair to many pagans, so that they may ruin them and cause confusion in their religion. Had God pleased, they would not have done so; so leave them to their false inventions. 137 And they say: Such cattle and crops are forbidden. No-one is to eat of them save whom we will - in their make-believe - cattle whose backs are forbidden, cattle over which they mention not the name of Allah. (All that is) a lie against Him. He will repay them for that which they invent. 138 They say, "What is in the wombs of such and such cattle is exclusively for our males and is forbidden to our females. But if it is stillborn, they may have a share of it." God will soon punish them for their [false] attribution. He is wise, and all-knowing. 139 Those will have lost who killed their children in foolishness without knowledge and prohibited what Allah had provided for them, inventing untruth about Allah. They have gone astray and were not [rightly] guided. 140