AND TELL My servants that they should speak in the most kindly manner [unto those who do not share their beliefs]: verily, Satan is always ready to stir up discord between men - for, verily, Satan is man's open foe! 53 Your Lord is fully aware of you. He may show you mercy if He will, or punish you if He will. We have not sent you as their guardian. 54 And your Lord best knows those who are in the heavens and the earth; and certainly We have made some of the prophets to excel others, and to Dawood We gave a scripture. 55 Say: 'Call on those you asserted apart from Him; they have no power to remove affliction from you, or to transfer it. 56 Those they invoke themselves seek the way to their Lord, (striving) which one of them shall be nearest (to Him); and hope for His grace, and dread His punishment. Indeed, the punishment of your Lord is to be feared! 57 There is not a population but We shall destroy it before the Day of Judgment or punish it with a dreadful Penalty: that is written in the (eternal) Record. 58 And naught hindered Us from sending the signs except that the ancients belied them. And We vouchsafed unto Thamud a she-camel as an illumination, but they did her wrong. And We send not the signs save to frighten. 59 When We said to you: 'Indeed, your Lord encompasses all people' We did not make the vision which We showed to you, and the tree cursed in the Koran except to be a trial for people, and We frighten them, but it only increases them in great insolence. 60