Those who associate [others with God] say, "If God had so willed we would not have worshipped anything besides Him, neither we nor our fathers, nor would we have forbidden anything without His sanction." So did those who went before them. The duty of the messengers is only to convey the message clearly. 35 We raised a Messenger in every community (to tell them): "Serve Allah and shun the Evil One." Thereafter Allah guided some of them while others were overtaken by error. Go about the earth, then, and observe what was the end of those who rejected the Messengers, calling them liars. 36 If you desire for their guidance, yet surely Allah does not guide him who leads astray, nor shall they have any helpers. 37 They swear their strongest oaths by God that God will never raise the dead to life -- nonetheless, it is a promise truly binding on Him, even though most people do not realize it -- 38 So that He might make manifest to them that about which they differ, and that those who disbelieve might know that they were liars. 39 Indeed, Our word to a thing when We intend it is but that We say to it, "Be," and it is. 40