And We have already sent [messengers] to nations before you, [O Muhammad]; then We seized them with poverty and hardship that perhaps they might humble themselves [to Us]. 42 Then why, when Our punishment came to them, did they not humble themselves? But their hearts became hardened, and Satan made attractive to them that which they were doing. 43 Then, when they had forgotten all that they had been told to take to heart, We threw open to them the gates of all [good] things until - even as they were rejoicing in what they had been granted - We suddenly took them to task: and lo! they were broken in spirit; 44 The wrongdoers were thus annihilated. All praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds. 45 Say: 'What think you? If God seizes your hearing and sight, and sets a seal upon your hearts, who is a god other than God to give it back to you?' Behold how We turn about the signs! Yet thereafter they are turning away. 46 Tell them, "Have you considered that if God's torment was to befall you suddenly or in public, would anyone else be destroyed except the unjust?" 47 We send forth Our Messengers only to give glad tidings to mankind and to warn them. Those who believe and mend their ways shall have nothing to fear or to be saddened. 48 And those who deny Our signs – the punishment will afflict them for their disobedience. 49 Say [O Prophet]: "I do not say unto you, 'God's treasures are with me,'; nor [do I say,] 'I know the things that are beyond the reach of human perception'; nor do I say unto you, 'Behold, I am an angel': I but follow what is revealed to me." Say: "Can the blind and the seeing be deemed equal? Will you not, then, take thought?" 50