(Muhammad), ask them about the (people of the) towns on the seashore. They had transgressed by catching fish on the Sabbath. Each Sabbath the fish came openly within their reach but not so on other days. Thus, We were testing them because of their evil deeds. 163 And recall when a party of them said: 'Why do you admonish a people whom Allah is about to destroy or punish severely?' They said: 'We admonish them in order to be able to offer an excuse before Your Lord, and in the hope that they will guard against disobedience.' 164 But when they forgot to remember the warning, We saved those who prohibited evil, but inflicted on the wicked a dreadful punishment -- requital for their disobedience. 165 Consequently when they rebelled against the command to refrain, We said to them, “Be apes, despised!” 166 And lo! Thy Sustainer made it known that most certainly He would rouse against them, unto Resurrection Day, people who would afflict them with cruel suffering: verily, thy Sustainer is swift in retribution - yet, verily, He is [also] much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace. 167 And We have broken them (i.e. the Jews) up into various separate groups on the earth, some of them are righteous and some are away from that. And We tried them with good (blessings) and evil (calamities) in order that they might turn (to Allah's Obedience). 168 And they have been succeeded by [new] generations who - [in spite of] having inherited the divine writ - clutch but at the fleeting good of this lower world and say: "We shall be forgiven, the while they are ready, if another such fleeting good should come their way, to clutch at it [and sin again]. Have they not been solemnly pledged through the divine writ not to attribute unto God aught but what is true, and [have they not] read again and again all that is therein? Since the life in the hereafter is the better [of the two] for all who are conscious of God - will you not, then, use your reason? 169 For [We shall requite] all those who hold fast to the divine writ and are constant in prayer: verily, We shall not fail to requite those who enjoin the doing of what is right! 170 ۞ And recall what time We shook the mountain over them as though it were a canopy, and they imagined that it was going to fall on them; and We said: hold with firmness that which We have vouchsafed you, and remember that which is therein, that haply ye may fear. 171