[And thus will God continue:] "O you who have lived in close communion with [evil] invisible beings and [like-minded] humans! Have there not come unto you apostles from among yourselves, who conveyed unto you My messages and warned you of the coming of this your Day [of Judgment]?" They will answer: "We do bear witness against ourselves!" - for the life of this world had beguiled them: and so they will bear witness against themselves that they had been denying the truth. 130 This is because thy Lord is not one to destroy a town for its wrong-doing while its people are unaware. 131 And for everyone are ranks from what they do; and your Lord is not unaware of their deeds. 132 Your Lord is Rich and the Owner of Mercy. He can destroy you if He will and replace you with whom He pleases, just as He raised you from the offspring of other nations. 133 The promise that was made to you is bound to be fulfilled. It is not in your power to defeat it. 134 Say, "O my people, work according to your position; [for] indeed, I am working. And you are going to know who will have succession in the home. Indeed, the wrongdoers will not succeed. 135 They allocate a share from God's own created fields and cattle to God, and they say: "This is God's" -- or so they think -- "and that, of the compeers of God," so that what belongs to the compeers does not reach God, but that which is God's may reach the compeers (set up by them). How bad is the judgement that they make! 136 And likewise, their belief in beings or powers that are supposed to have a share in God's divinity makes [even] the slaying of their children seem goodly to many of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God, thus bringing them to ruin and confusing them in their faith. Yet, unless God had so willed, they would not be doing all this: stand, therefore, aloof from them and all their false imagery! 137 They say, 'These are cattle and tillage sacrosanct; none shall eat them, but whom we will'-- so they assert -- 'and cattle whose backs have been forbidden, and cattle over which they mention not the Name of God.' All that they say, forging against God; He will assuredly recompense them for what they were forging. 138 They also say: 'What is in the bellies (wombs) of these cattle is reserved for our males but not for our wives' But if it is stillborn, they all partake of it. He will recompense them for their describing. He is Wise, Knowing. 139 Indeed lost are they who have killed their children, from folly, without knowledge, and have forbidden that which Allah has provided for them, inventing a lie against Allah. They have indeed gone astray and were not guided. 140