[And thus will God continue:] "O you who have lived in close communion with [evil] invisible beings and [like-minded] humans! Have there not come unto you apostles from among yourselves, who conveyed unto you My messages and warned you of the coming of this your Day [of Judgment]?" They will answer: "We do bear witness against ourselves!" - for the life of this world had beguiled them: and so they will bear witness against themselves that they had been denying the truth. 130 This is because your Lord would not destroy towns unjustly while their people were negligent. 131 To all are degrees (or ranks) according to their deeds: for thy Lord is not unmindful of anything that they do. 132 Thy Lord is All-sufficient, Merciful. If He will, He can put you away, and leave after you, to succeed you, what He will, as He produced you from the seed of another people. 133 The promise that was made to you is bound to be fulfilled. It is not in your power to defeat it. 134 Say: "O my people! Do whatever ye can: I will do (my part): soon will ye know who it is whose end will be (best) in the Hereafter: certain it is that the wrong-doers will not prosper." 135 They set aside for God a share in what He has produced, such as crops and livestock, and they say, "This is for God," so they claim!, and "this is for our associate-gods?" Their associate-gods' share does not reach God, whereas God's share reaches their associate-gods. How ill they judge! 136 Thus have their (so-called) partners (of Allah) made the killing of their children to seem fair unto many of the idolaters, that they may ruin them and make their faith obscure for them. Had Allah willed (it otherwise), they had not done so. So leave them alone with their devices. 137 They say, 'These are cattle and tillage sacrosanct; none shall eat them, but whom we will'-- so they assert -- 'and cattle whose backs have been forbidden, and cattle over which they mention not the Name of God.' All that they say, forging against God; He will assuredly recompense them for what they were forging. 138 And they say: "Whatever is in the wombs of these cattle is only meant for men and forbidden our women; but in case it should be still-born both could eat it." God will punish them for what they assert. He is all-wise and all-knowing. 139 Losers indeed are they who kill their children foolishly and without knowledge and declare as forbidden what God has provided for them as sustenance -- a fabrication against God: they have gone astray and have not chosen to be rightly guided. 140