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 We raised a Messenger in every community (to tell them): "Serve Allah and shun the Evil One." Thereafter Allah guided some of them while others were overtaken by error. Go about the earth, then, and observe what was the end of those who rejected the Messengers, calling them liars. 36 Though thou art ever so eager to guide them, God guides not those whom He leads astray; they have no helpers. 37 They have sworn by God the most earnest oaths God will never raise up him who dies; nay, it is a promise binding upon Him, but most men know not, 38 so that He may make clear to them that whereon they were at variance, and that the unbelievers may know that they were truly liars. 39 And Our word unto a thing, when We intend it, is only that We say unto it: Be! and it is. 40