We gave Moses the Book and appointed his brother Aaron as his counsellor: 35 and We said, "Go you both unto the people who have given the lie to Our messages!" - and thereupon We broke those [sinners] to smithereens. 36 We drowned the people of Noah also when they rejected their messengers and We made them an example to all mankind. We have prepared a painful punishment for the wrongdoers, 37 to 'Ad, and Thamud, and the people of al-Rass, and as We did for the many a generation between them. 38 And for each We presented examples [as warnings], and each We destroyed with [total] destruction. 39 And they [who now deny Our messages] must surely have come across that town which was rained upon by a rain of evil: have they, then, never beheld it [with their minds eye]? But nay, they would not believe in resurrection! 40 Whenever they see you, they mock you (saying): 'Is this whom Allah has sent as a Messenger? 41 Indeed, he would well-nigh have led us astray from our deities, had we not been [so] steadfastly attached to them!" But in time, when they see the suffering [that awaits them,] they will come to know who it was that went farthest astray from the path [of truth]! 42 Seest thou such a one as taketh for his god his own passion (or impulse)? Couldst thou be a disposer of affairs for him? 43 Or thinkest thou that most of them listen or understand? They are only like cattle;- nay, they are worse astray in Path. 44