Tell My servants that they should always say what is best. Satan stirs up discord among them. Surely, Satan is an outright enemy to man. 53 Your Lord knows you very well. He will have mercy on you if He will, or punish you if He will. We have not sent you to be their guardian. 54 Your Lord knows very well all who are in the heavens and the earth. We have preferred some Prophets above others, and to David We gave the Psalms. 55 Say: "Call those whom you imagine to be gods besides Him; yet they have no power to relieve you of any distress or to avert it." 56 Those whom they worship seek to find intercessors for themselves with God. (They try to find out which of the intercessors) are closer to God. They have hope for His mercy and fear of His punishment; the punishment of your Lord is awesome. 57 There is not a township but We shall destroy it ere the Day of Resurrection, or punish it with dire punishment. That is set forth in the Book (of Our decrees). 58 And nothing has prevented Us from sending [this message, like the earlier ones,] with miraculous signs [in its wake,] save [Our knowledge] that the people of olden times [only too often] gave the lie to them: thus, We provided for [the tribe of] Thamud the she-camel as a light-giving portent, and they sinned against it. And never did We send those signs for any other purpose than to convey a warning. 59 And (remember) when We told you: "Verily! Your Lord has encompassed mankind (i.e. they are in His Grip)." And We made not the vision which we showed you (O Muhammad as an actual eye-witness and not as a dream on the night of Al-Isra') but a trial for mankind, and likewise the accursed tree (Zaqqum, mentioned) in the Quran. We warn and make them afraid but it only increases them in naught save great disbelief, oppression and disobedience to Allah. 60