۞ And mention the brother of Ad; when he warned his people in the sandy plains,-- and indeed warners came before him and after him-- saying Serve none but Allah; surely I fear for you the punishment of a grievous day. 21 They said: "Have you come to turn us away from our aliha (gods)? Then bring us that with which you threaten us, if you are one of the truthful!" 22 'Allah alone has the knowledge' he said, 'I am sent to deliver to you the Message. But I can see that you are ignorant people' 23 And when they saw it as a sudden cloud heading for their valley they said: 'This is a cloud that will bring us rain' 'Rather' (he replied): 'it is that which you have sought to hasten, a wind in which there is a painful punishment. 24 that will destroy everything by the command of its Lord.” Thereafter nothing was left to be seen except their dwellings. Thus do We requite the wrong-doers. 25 And yet, We had established them securely in a manner in which We have never established you, [O people of later times;] and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and [knowledgeable] hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, seeing that they went on rejecting God's messages; and [in the end] they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26