No sooner than We bestow mercy on a people after hardship has hit them than they begin to scheme against Our signs. Tell them: 'Allah is swifter in scheming. Our angels are recording all your intriguing. 21 It is He who conveys you by land and sea. When you are on board the ship and the ships run with them upon a fair breeze they are joyful. (But when) a strong wind and waves come upon them from every side, and they think they are encompassed, they supplicate to Allah, making their religion His sincerely, (saying): 'If You save us from this, we will indeed be among the thankful' 22 But when He delivers them, lo! they are unjustly rebellious in the earth. O men! your rebellion is against your own souls-- provision (only) of this world's life-- then to Us shall be your return, so We will inform you of what you did. 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 invites to the abode of peace and guides whom He pleases into the right path. 25 ۞ For those who have done good is the best (reward, i.e. Paradise) and even more (i.e. having the honour of glancing at the Countenance of Allah) Neither darkness nor dust nor any humiliating disgrace shall cover their faces. They are the dwellers of Paradise, they will abide therein 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 On the day when We gather them all together, then We say unto those who ascribed partners (unto Us): Stand back, ye and your (pretended) partners (of Allah)! And We separate them, the one from the other, and their (pretended) partners say: It was not us ye worshipped. 28 And sufficient is Allah as a witness between us and you that we were of your worship unaware." 29 There doth every soul experience that which it did aforetime, and they are returned unto Allah, their rightful Lord, and that which they used to invent hath failed them. 30