Ask them about the village that overlooked the sea and what befell (its people) when they broke the Sabbath. Each Sabbath, their fish came swimming towards the shore, but on other days they did not come to them. As such We tempted them (the people) because they had done wrong. 163 When a group of them questioned another group saying, "Why do you preach to those whom God has decided to destroy or punish by a severe torment?" they replied, "We preach to them for we are responsible in the sight of your Lord and so that perhaps they may have fear of God." 164 And thereupon, when those [sinners] had forgotten all that they had been told to take to heart, We saved those who had tried to prevent the doing of evil, and overwhelmed those who had been bent on evildoing with dreadful suffering for all their iniquity; 165 So when they exceeded the limits of what they were prohibited, We said to them: "Be you monkeys, despised and rejected." (It is a severe warning to the mankind that they should not disobey what Allah commands them to do, and be far away from what He prohibits them). 166 And remember when your Lord announced the command that till the Day of Resurrection I will certainly send such oppressors against them, who will inflict them with a dreadful punishment; indeed your Lord is swift in meting out punishment; and indeed He is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful. 167 And We cut them up into nations in the earth, some of them righteous, and some of them otherwise; and We tried them with good things and evil, that haply they should return. 168 Then others succeeded them who inherited the scriptures, and yet kept themselves occupied in acquiring the goods of this world and kept saying: 'We shall be forgiven.' And when there comes to them an opportunity for acquiring more of those goods, they seize it. Was not the covenant of the Book taken from them that they would not ascribe to Allah anything but the truth? And they have read what is in the Book and know that the abode of the Hereafter is better for the God-fearing. Do you not understand? 169 And those who hold fast to the Book, and have kept the prayer established; and We do not waste the wages of the righteous. 170 ۞ When We shook the Mount over them, as if it had been a canopy, and they thought it was going to fall on them (We said): "Hold firmly to what We have given you, and bring (ever) to remembrance what is therein; perchance ye may fear Allah." 171