And ask the people of Moses concerning the town situated along the sea how its people profaned the Sabbath when fish came to them breaking the water's surface on Sabbath days, and would not come to them on other than Sabbath-days. Thus did We try them because of their disobedience. 163 And when a certain nation of them said, 'Why do you admonish a people God is about to destroy or to chastise with a terrible chastisement?' They said, 'As an excuse to your Lord; and haply they will be godfearing.' 164 Then, when they forgot what they had been exhorted, We delivered those who forbade evil and afflicted the wrong-doers with a grievous chastisement because of their evildoing. 165 So when they exceeded the limits of what they were prohibited, We said to them: "Be you monkeys, despised and rejected." (It is a severe warning to the mankind that they should not disobey what Allah commands them to do, and be far away from what He prohibits them). 166 And remember when your Lord announced the command that till the Day of Resurrection I will certainly send such oppressors against them, who will inflict them with a dreadful punishment; indeed your Lord is swift in meting out punishment; and indeed He is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful. 167 We broke them up into sections on this earth. There are among them some that are the righteous, and some that are the opposite. We have tried them with both prosperity and adversity: In order that they might turn (to us). 168 Then after them a new generation inherited the Book. They took to the things of this base world, and said: "We shall (surely) be forgiven this." Yet they will accept similar things if they came their way again. Had they not been covenanted in the Book to say nothing in the name of God but the truth? And they have read this in it. The abode of the life to come is better for those who fear God. Can they not comprehend? 169 As for those who adhere to the Book and are firm in devotion, We shall certainly not let the wages of those who are upright to go waste. 170 ۞ And when We raised the Mount (Sinai) above them as if it were a canopy, and they thought that it would fall upon them; “Accept firmly what We have given you, and remember what is in it, so that you may become pious.” 171