The unbelievers said to their Messengers, 'We will assuredly expel you from our land, or you will surely return into our creed.' Then did their Lord reveal unto them: 'We will surely destroy the evildoers, 13 and let you live in the land after them. This is for him who fears My station and fears My threat' 14 And they requested victory from Allah, and disappointed, [therefore], was every obstinate tyrant. 15 with hell awaiting him; and he shall be made to drink of the water of most bitter distress, 16 gulping it [unceasingly,] little by little, and yet hardly able to swallow it. And death will beset him from every quarter - but he shall not die: for [yet more] severe suffering lies ahead of him. 17 The state of those who disbelieve in their Lord is that their deeds are like ashes which the strong wind blew away on a stormy day; they got nothing from all that they earned; this is the extreme error. 18 Hast thou not seen that Allah hath created the heavens and the earth with truth? If He will, He can remove you and bring (in) some new creation; 19 that is no difficult thing for God. 20 Then all of them will appear exposed before Allah, and the weak ones will say to the haughty ones: "We merely followed you. Will you, then, protect us from Allah's chastisement?" They will say: "Had Allah shown us the Way to our salvation, we would surely have also guided you. Now it is all the same whether we cry or suffer patiently, we have no escape." 21