The idolators say, 'If God had willed we would not have served; apart from Him, anything, neither we nor our fathers, nor would we have forbidden, apart from Him, anything.' So did those before them; yet is aught for the Messengers, but to deliver the manifest Message? 35 And indeed We sent to every nation a Noble Messenger (proclaiming) that “Worship Allah and beware of the devil”; therefore Allah guided some of them, and error proved true upon some of them; therefore travel in the land and see what sort of fate befell the deniers! 36 If you desire for their guidance, yet surely Allah does not guide him who leads astray, nor shall they have any helpers. 37 They swear their strongest oaths by God that God will never raise the dead to life -- nonetheless, it is a promise truly binding on Him, even though most people do not realize it -- 38 For (they fear) He might make what they differed about plain to them, and that the infidels may realise that they were liars. 39 Our word for a thing when We intend it, is only that We say to it, Be, and it is. 40