Allah knows what every female bears; and what the wombs fall short of (in gestation), and what they may add. With Him everything is in a fixed measure. 8 The All Knowing of all things hidden and visible, the Great, the Supreme. 9 It is all the same for Him whether any of you says a thing secretly, or says it loudly, and whether one hides oneself in the darkness of night, or struts about in broad daylight. 10 he has attendant angels, before him and behind him, watching over him by God's command. God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves. Whensover God desires evil for a people, there is no turning it back; apart from Him, they have no protector. 11 It is God who flashes lightning to frighten you and to give you hope. It is He who forms the heavy clouds. 12 And the thunder declares His glory with His praise, and the angels too for awe of Him; and He sends the thunderbolts and smites with them whom He pleases, yet they dispute concerning Allah, and He is mighty in prowess. 13 For Him (Alone) is the Word of Truth (i.e. none has the right to be worshipped but He). And those whom they (polytheists and disbelievers) invoke, answer them no more than one who stretches forth his hand (at the edge of a deep well) for water to reach his mouth, but it reaches him not, and the invocation of the disbelievers is nothing but an error (i.e. of no use). 14 All in the heavens and the earth prostrate themselves before God, either of their own free will or by force, just as do their shadows in the mornings and evenings. ۩ 15 Say: "Who is the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth?" Say: "[It is] God." Say: "[Why,] then, do you take for your protectors, instead of Him, such as have it not within their power to bring benefit to, or avert harm from, themselves?" Say: "Can the blind and the seeing be deemed equal? - or can the depths of darkness and the light be deemed equal?" Or do they [really] believe that there are, side by side with God, other divine powers that have created the like of what He creates, so that this act of creation appears to them to be similar [to His]? Say: "God is the Creator of all things; and He is the One who holds absolute sway over all that exists." 16 He sends down water from the cloud, then watercourses flow (with water) according to their measure, and the torrent bears along the swelling foam, and from what they melt in the fire for the sake of making ornaments or apparatus arises a scum like it; thus does Allah compare truth and falsehood; then as for the scum, it passes away as a worthless thing; and as for that which profits the people, it tarries in the earth; thus does Allah set forth parables. 17 For those who have responded to their Lord is the best [reward], but those who did not respond to Him - if they had all that is in the earth entirely and the like of it with it, they would [attempt to] ransom themselves thereby. Those will have the worst account, and their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the resting place. 18