No sooner than We bestow mercy on a people after hardship has hit them than they begin to scheme against Our signs. Tell them: 'Allah is swifter in scheming. Our angels are recording all your intriguing. 21 He it is Who enableth you to traverse through land and sea; so that ye even board ships;- they sail with them with a favourable wind, and they rejoice thereat; then comes a stormy wind and the waves come to them from all sides, and they think they are being overwhelmed: they cry unto Allah, sincerely offering (their) duty unto Him saying, "If thou dost deliver us from this, we shall truly show our gratitude!" 22 Yet as soon as He has saved them from this [danger,] lo! they behave outrageously on earth, offending against all right! O men! All your outrageous deeds are bound to fall back upon your own selves! [You care only for] the enjoyment of life in this world: [but remember that] in the end unto Us you must return, whereupon We shall make you truly understand all that you were doing [in life]. 23 This present life is like the water We send down from the sky. The plants of the earth mix with it and from it mankind and cattle eat; then when the earth has become lush and adorned, its inhabitants think they have power over it, Our command comes upon it by night or day, and We cause it to be stubble, just as though it had not flourished the day before. In this way We distinguish Our verses for those who reflect. 24 Allah invites you to the House of Peace. He guides whom He will to a Straight Path 25 ۞ For those who do good is good (reward) and more (than this); and blackness or ignominy shall not cover their faces; these are the dwellers of the garden; in it they shall abide. 26 But those who earn evil shall be punished to an equal degree as their evil, and they will be covered with shame, and will have none to protect them against God: Their faces shall be blackened as though with patches of the night. They are the people of Hell, where they will abide for ever, 27 And on the day when We raise all of them together, then say to the polytheists, “Stay in your place – you and your partners (false deities)”; so We shall separate them from the believers, and their partners will say to them, “When did you ever worship us!?” 28 God suffices as a witness between us and you. We were entirely unaware that you worshipped us." 29 There will every soul prove (the fruits of) the deeds it sent before: they will be brought back to Allah their rightful Lord, and their invented falsehoods will leave them in the lurch. 30