We narrate to you their true story. They were a party of young men who had faith in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance 13 and endowed their hearts with strength, so that they stood up and said [to one another]: "Our Sustainer is the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. Never shall we invoke any deity other than Him: [if we did,] we should indeed have uttered an enormity! 14 These, our nation have taken to themselves gods, other than Allah. Why do they not bring some clear authority regarding them! Who does greater evil than he who forges a lie against Allah' 15 So, when you have gone apart from them and that they serve, excepting God, take refuge in the Cave, and your Lord will unfold to you of His mercy, and will furnish -- you with a gentle issue of your affair.' 16 ۞ And [for many a year] thou might have seen the sun, on its rising, incline away from their cave on the right, and on its setting, turn aside from them on the left, while they lived on in that spacious chamber, [bearing witness to] this of God's messages: He whom God guides, he alone has found the right way; whereas for him whom He lets go astray thou canst never find any protector who would point out the right way. 17