When We let them taste Our mercy after affliction, they contrive against Our signs. Say: "God is swifter at contriving," for Our angels record everything you plan. 21 It is God who enables you to travel on land and sea. And when you are sailing on ships and rejoicing in the favourable wind, a storm arrives, and the waves surge upon those on board from every side and they think they are encompassed, then they make a fervent appeal to God, saying in all sincerity, "If You deliver us from this, we will surely be of the thankful." 22 But when He has delivered them, they begin, wrongfully to commit excesses in the land. O you men, your excesses only affect your own selves. Have the enjoyment of the present life. Then to Us you shall return; and We will inform you of all that you have done. 23 The likeness of this present life is as water that We send down out of heaven, and the plants of the earth mingle with it whereof men and cattle eat, till, when the earth has taken on its glitter and has decked itself fair, and its inhabitants think they have power over it, Our command comes upon it by night or day, and We make it stubble, as though yesterday it flourished not. Even so We distinguish the signs for a people who reflect. 24 And Allah calls to the abode of peace, and guides whomever He wills on the Straight Path. 25 ۞ the good-doers the reward most fair and a surplus; neither dust nor abasement shall overspread their faces. Those are the inhabitants of Paradise, therein dwelling forever. 26 As for those who have earned evil deeds, evil shall be recompensed with its like. Abasement will cover them, they shall have none to defend them from Allah as though their faces were covered with parts of the blackness of night. Those, they are the companions of the Fire, in it they shall live for ever. 27 And on the day when We will gather them all together, then We will say to those who associated others (with Allah): Keep where you are, you and your associates; then We shall separate them widely one from another and their associates would say: It was not us that you served: 28 God suffices as a witness between us and you. We were entirely unaware that you worshipped us." 29 Here will every soul come to know what it has sent ahead, and they will be returned to Allah – their true Master, and they will lose all that they used to fabricate. 30