Tell My bondmen to speak that which is kindlier. Lo! the devil soweth discord among them. Lo! the devil is for man an open foe. 53 Your Lord is the Best Knower of you; if He willeth He will have mercy upon you, or if He willeth He will torment you. And We have not sent thee over them as a trustee. 54 And your Lord best knows those who are in the heavens and the earth; and certainly We have made some of the prophets to excel others, and to Dawood We gave a scripture. 55 Say: "Call those whom you imagine to be gods besides Him; yet they have no power to relieve you of any distress or to avert it." 56 Those, they call upon are themselves seeking a means to come to their Lord, competing with each other to be nearer; they hope for His Mercy and fear His punishment. Indeed, the punishment of your Lord is the subject of caution. 57 No city is there, but We shall destroy it before the Day of Resurrection, or We shall chastise it with a terrible chastisement; that is in the Book inscribed. 58 And naught hindered Us from sending the signs except that the ancients belied them. And We vouchsafed unto Thamud a she-camel as an illumination, but they did her wrong. And We send not the signs save to frighten. 59 And when We said to thee, 'Surely thy Lord encompasses men,' and We made the vision that We showed thee and the tree cursed in the Koran to be only a trial for men; and We frighten them, but it only increases them in great insolence. 60