۞ From it We created you and into it We shall send you back and from it will We raise you a second time. 55 So We showed him (Pharaoh) Our signs, all of them, but he belied and refused them. 56 He said: 'Moses, have you come to drive us from our land with your sorcery? 57 "Then verily, we can produce magic the like thereof; so appoint a meeting between us and you, which neither we, nor you shall fail to keep, in an open wide place where both shall have a just and equal chance (and beholders could witness the competition)." 58 Said Moosa, “Your meeting is the day of the festival, and that the people be assembled at late morning.” 59 Thereupon Pharaoh withdrew [with his counsellors] and decided upon the scheme which he would pursue; and then he came [to the tryst]. 60 Musa said to them: Woe to you! do not forge a lie against Allah, lest He destroy you by a punishment, and he who forges (a lie) indeed fails to attain (his desire). 61 So they disputed over their affair among themselves and concealed their private conversation. 62 They said: verily these two are magicians, intending to drive you forth from your land by their magic and to do away with your superior way. 63 Wherefore devise your stratagem, and then come in a row; and prospered today is he who overcometh. 64 They said: O Moses! Either throw first, or let us be the first to throw? 65 He said: nay, cast ye down. And lo! their cords and their staves were made to appear to him by their magic as though they were running. 66 So Musa (Moses) conceived a fear in himself. 67 But We said to him: 'Do not be afraid; you shall surely be the uppermost. 68 Throw that which is in your right hand. It will swallow up that which they have made, for that which they made is but the guile of a sorcerer. Wherever he goes the sorcerer does not prosper' 69 Eventually the magicians were impelled to fall down prostrate and said: "We believe in the Lord of Moses and Aaron." 70 (The Pharaoh) said: "You have come to believe without my dispensation. Surely he is your chief who taught you magic. I will have your hands and feet cut off on alternate sides and crucify you on the trunks of date-palm trees. You will come to know whose punishment is harder and protracted." 71 Their reply was: 'We will not prefer you over the clear signs that have come to us, nor over Him who has created us. So decide upon whatever you decide, you can only decide upon things in this present life. 72 Surely we believe in our Lord that He may forgive us our sins and the magic to which you compelled us; and Allah is better and more abiding. 73 Indeed the one who comes guilty to his Lord – so undoubtedly for him is hell; neither dying nor living in it. 74 And whosoever cometh unto Him as a believer, and he hath done righteous works - then these! for them are ranks high. 75 Everlasting Gardens of Eden beneath which rivers flow, abiding in them for ever; and this is the reward of one who became pure. 76