O you assembly of jinns and men, did not apostles come to you from among you, communicating My signs to you, bringing warnings of this your day (of Doom)?" They will answer: "We bear witness to our sins." They were surely deluded by the life of the world, and bore witness against themselves because they were unbelievers. 130 This is because your Lord would not destroy towns unjustly while their people were negligent. 131 For all are degrees of rank according to their deeds; your Lord is not unaware of anything they do. 132 Thy Lord is self-sufficient, full of Mercy: if it were His will, He could destroy you, and in your place appoint whom He will as your successors, even as He raised you up from the posterity of other people. 133 Verily, that [reckoning] which you are promised is bound to come, and you cannot elude it! 134 Say, "O my people, work according to your position; [for] indeed, I am working. And you are going to know who will have succession in the home. Indeed, the wrongdoers will not succeed. 135 They set aside for God a share in what He has produced, such as crops and livestock, and they say, "This is for God," so they claim!, and "this is for our associate-gods?" Their associate-gods' share does not reach God, whereas God's share reaches their associate-gods. How ill they judge! 136 And so to many of the Mushrikun (polytheists - see V. 2:105) their (Allah's so-called) "partners" have made fair-seeming the killing of their children, in order to lead them to their own destruction and cause confusion in their religion. And if Allah had willed they would not have done so. So leave them alone with their fabrications. 137 They say, 'These are cattle and tillage sacrosanct; none shall eat them, but whom we will'-- so they assert -- 'and cattle whose backs have been forbidden, and cattle over which they mention not the Name of God.' All that they say, forging against God; He will assuredly recompense them for what they were forging. 138 And they say, 'What is within the bellies of these cattle is reserved for our males and forbidden to our spouses; but if it be dead, then they all shall be partners in it.' He will assuredly recompense them for their describing; surely He is All-wise, All-knowing. 139 They are losers who besottedly have slain their children without knowledge, and have forbidden that which Allah bestowed upon them, inventing a lie against Allah. They indeed have gone astray and are not guided. 140