۞ And mention the brother of Ad; when he warned his people in the sandy plains,-- and indeed warners came before him and after him-- saying Serve none but Allah; surely I fear for you the punishment of a grievous day. 21 but they said, "Have you come to us to turn us away from our deities? Then bring down upon us what you threaten us with, if you are truthful." 22 He said, "God alone knows when it will come, and I deliver to you the message with which I am sent, but I see you are a people who are ignorant." 23 Then when they beheld it as an overpeering cloud tending toward their valleys they said: yonder is an overpeering cloud bringing us rain. Nay it is that which ye sought to be hastened: a wind wherein is a torment afflictive. 24 destroying everything by the commandment of its Lord.' So in the morning there was naught to be seen but their dwelling-places. Even so do We recompense the people of the sinners. 25 And yet, We had established them securely in a manner in which We have never established you, [O people of later times;] and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and [knowledgeable] hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, seeing that they went on rejecting God's messages; and [in the end] they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26