We sent messengers before you [Prophet] to many communities and afflicted their people with suffering and hardship, so that they might humble themselves. 42 Yet why did they not, when Our punishment came to them, humble themselves? But their hearts hardened and the Shaitan made what they did fair-seeming to them. 43 So, when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We opened the gates of all things so that while they rejoiced in what they had been granted We seized them suddenly and they were plunged into utter despair. 44 and [in the end,] the last remnant of those folk who had been bent on evildoing was wiped out. For all praise is due to God, the Sustainer of all 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 Say: "Think ye, if the punishment of Allah comes to you, whether suddenly or openly, will any be destroyed except those who do wrong? 47 And We send not apostles but as announcers of good news and givers of warning, then whoever believes and acts aright, they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve. 48 But those who deny Our verses - the punishment will touch them for their defiant 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