And if not for a word that preceded from your Lord, punishment would have been an obligation [due immediately], and [if not for] a specified term [decreed]. 129 So be thou patient under what they say, and proclaim thy Lord's praise before the rising of the sun, and before its setting, and proclaim thy Lord's praise in the watches of the night, and at the ends of the day; haply thou wilt be well-pleasing. 130 And strain not your eyes in longing for the things We have given for enjoyment to various groups of them (polytheists and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah), the splendour of the life of this world that We may test them thereby. But the provision (good reward in the Hereafter) of your Lord is better and more lasting. 131 Instruct your family to pray and to be steadfast in their worship. We do not ask any sustenance from you; it is We who give you sustenance. Know that piety will have a happy end. 132 They ask: "Why does he not bring us a (miraculous) sign from his Lord?" Has there not come to them a Book containing the teachings of the previous scriptures? 133 And if We had destroyed them with a punishment before him, they would have said, "Our Lord, why did You not send to us a messenger so we could have followed Your verses before we were humiliated and disgraced?" 134 Say: "Each one (of us) is waiting: wait ye, therefore, and soon shall ye know who it is that is on the straight and even way, and who it is that has received Guidance." 135