We sent messengers before you [Prophet] to many communities and afflicted their people with suffering and hardship, so that they might humble themselves. 42 If only they humbled themselves when Our scourge overtook them! But their hearts were hardened, and satan decorated to them what they were doing. 43 So when they forgot that by which they had been reminded, We opened to them the doors of every [good] thing until, when they rejoiced in that which they were given, We seized them suddenly, and they were [then] in despair. 44 Thus were the wicked people rooted out of existence to the last. All praise be to God, the Lord of all the worlds. 45 Say: 'What think you? If God seizes your hearing and sight, and sets a seal upon your hearts, who is a god other than God to give it back to you?' Behold how We turn about the signs! Yet thereafter they are turning away. 46 Tell them, "Have you considered that if God's torment was to befall you suddenly or in public, would anyone else be destroyed except the unjust?" 47 We do not send the Envoys, except good tidings to bear, and warning; whoever believes and makes amends -- no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow. 48 But those who cry lies to Our signs, them the chastisement shall visit, for that they were ungodly. 49 Say [O Prophet]: "I do not say unto you, 'God's treasures are with me,'; nor [do I say,] 'I know the things that are beyond the reach of human perception'; nor do I say unto you, 'Behold, I am an angel': I but follow what is revealed to me." Say: "Can the blind and the seeing be deemed equal? Will you not, then, take thought?" 50