And ask thou them concerning the town that was close on the sea, when they transgressed in the matter of the sabt, when their fish came unto them openly on their sabt day, while they came not on the day whereon they kept not the sabt. Thus they were wont to transgress. 163 And when a community among them said: "Why do you preach to a people whom Allah is about to destroy or to punish with a severe torment?" (The preachers) said: "In order to be free from guilt before your Lord (Allah), and perhaps they may fear Allah." 164 Then, when they forgot what they had been exhorted, We delivered those who forbade evil and afflicted the wrong-doers with a grievous chastisement because of their evildoing. 165 And when they had scornfully persisted in what they had been forbidden, We said to them: 'Be apes, despised' 166 (Muhammad), consider, when your Lord declared to the (Israelites) His decision to raise a people above them who would make them suffer the worst kinds of torments until the Day of Judgment. Certainly your Lord's retribution is swift. He is All-forgiving and All-merciful. 167 And We have broken them (i.e. the Jews) up into various separate groups on the earth, some of them are righteous and some are away from that. And We tried them with good (blessings) and evil (calamities) in order that they might turn (to Allah's Obedience). 168 And they have been succeeded by [new] generations who - [in spite of] having inherited the divine writ - clutch but at the fleeting good of this lower world and say: "We shall be forgiven, the while they are ready, if another such fleeting good should come their way, to clutch at it [and sin again]. Have they not been solemnly pledged through the divine writ not to attribute unto God aught but what is true, and [have they not] read again and again all that is therein? Since the life in the hereafter is the better [of the two] for all who are conscious of God - will you not, then, use your reason? 169 As for those who adhere to the Book and are firm in devotion, We shall certainly not let the wages of those who are upright to go waste. 170 ۞ When We suspended the mountain over them as though it were a shadow and they feared that it was falling down on them (We said): 'Take forcefully that which We have given you and remember what it contains, in order that you keep from evil' 171