How many a city that was evildoing We have shattered, and set up after it another people! 11 And when they tasted Our punishment, they immediately started fleeing from it. 12 "Do not flee; go back to your halls of pleasure and your habitations, so that you may be interrogated." 13 And they could only cry: "Oh, woe unto us! Verily, we were wrongdoers!" 14 And that cry of theirs ceased not, till We made them as a field that is reaped, extinct (dead). 15 And We did not create the heaven and the earth and what is between them for sport. 16 If it had been Our wish to take (just) a pastime, We should surely have taken it from the things nearest to Us, if We would do (such a thing)! 17 Nay, but [by the very act of creation] We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it crushes the latter: and lo! it withers away. But woe unto you for all your [attempts at] defining [God] 18 for, unto Him belong all [beings] that are in the heavens and on earth; and those that are with Him are never too proud to worship Him and never grow weary [thereof]: 19 They celebrate His praises night and day, nor do they ever flag or intermit. 20 Have they taken deities from the earth who can bring the dead to life? 21 If there were, in the heavens and the earth, other gods besides Allah, there would have been confusion in both! but glory to Allah, the Lord of the Throne: (High is He) above what they attribute to Him! 22 He cannot be questioned as to what He does, while they will be questioned. 23 Have they taken gods, other than Him? Say: 'Bring us your proof! Here is the Remembrance of he who is with me and the Remembrance of those before me' But no, most of them do not know the truth, therefore they turn away. 24 We have not sent an apostle before you without instructing him that there is no god but I, so worship Me. 25 And they say; the Compassionate hath taken a son. Hallowed be He! aye! they are bondmen honoured. 26 that outstrip Him not in speech, and perform as He commands. 27 He knows what is before them and what is behind them. They intercede for none except for him whom He is well pleased, and they tremble in awe of Him. 28 ۞ And if anyone of them were to claim: "Indeed I am a god apart from Him," We shall recompense both with Hell. Thus do We recompense the wrong-doers. 29