Say thou unto My bondmen that they should say that which is best, Verily the Satan would stir up strife between them; verily the Satan is unto men ever an enemy manifest. 53 Your Lord knows you best. He will have mercy on you if He wills and chastise you if He wills. We have not sent you, (O Muhammad), as an overseer over them. 54 And thine Lord is the Best Knower of those who are in the heavens and the earth. And assuredly We have preferred some prophets over some others: and We vouchsafed unto Daud a Scripture. 55 Say: "Call on those - besides Him - whom ye fancy: they have neither the power to remove your troubles from you nor to change them." 56 Those whom they invoke seek means of access to their Lord, [striving as to] which of them would be nearest, and they hope for His mercy and fear His punishment. Indeed, the punishment of your Lord is ever feared. 57 And there is no such dwelling but which We shall destroy before the Day of Resurrection, or punish it severely; this is written in the Book. 58 Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them. And We gave Thamud the she-camel - a clear portent save to warn. 59 We told you that your Lord encompasses mankind. We granted the vision which We showed you, as well as the tree that is cursed in the Quran, only as a test for mankind. We warn them, but this only increases their insolence. 60