۞ O mankind! Ye are the poor in your relation to Allah. And Allah! He is the Absolute, the Owner of Praise. 15 If He will, He could destroy you and bring about a new creation. 16 This would not cost God dear at all. 17 No one who carries a burden bears another's load; and even if the burdened soul cry out for help none will carry the least of its burden, however close a relative it may be. You can only warn those who fear their Lord in secret and fulfil their devotional obligations. Whoever grows in goodness does so for himself. To God is the journeying back. 18 Equal are not the blind and those who can see, 19 Nor are (alike) the darkness (disbelief) and the light (Belief in Islamic Monotheism). 20 And neither are the shadow and the hot sunshine! 21 And not equal are the living and the dead! Indeed Allah causes them to listen*, whomever He wills; and you cannot make those who are in the graves** listen. (* Listen to guidance **The disbelievers are referred to as dead, whose fates are sealed.) 22 Thou art no other than a warner. 23 Indeed, We have sent you with the truth as a bringer of good tidings and a warner. And there was no nation but that there had passed within it a warner. 24 And if they give thee the lie - even so gave the lie to the truth [many of] those who lived before their time, [when] there came unto them their apostles with all evidence of the truth, and with books of divine wisdom, and with light-giving revelation; 25 Then I seized the ones who disbelieved, and how [terrible] was My reproach. 26