۞ NOW IF GOD were to hasten for human beings the ill [which they deserve by their sinning] in the same manner as they [themselves] would hasten [the coming to them of what they consider to be] good, their end would indeed come forthwith! But We leave them alone [for a while] - all those who do not believe that they are destined to meet Us: [We leave them alone] in their overweening arrogance, blindly stumbling to and fro. 11 When affliction visits a man, he calls Us on his side, or sitting, or standing; but when We have removed his affliction from him, he passes on, as if he never called Us to an affliction that visited him. So decked out fair to the prodigal is that they have been doing. 12 And indeed, before your time We destroyed [whole] generations when they [persistently] did evil; their messengers came to them with clear signs, but they would not believe. Thus We requite the guilty. 13 Then We made you their successors in the land, so that We might observe how you would conduct yourselves. 14 And when Our clear communications are recited to them, those who hope not for Our meeting say: Bring a Quran other than this or change it. Say: It does not beseem me that I should change it of myself; I follow naught but what is revealed to me; surely I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the punishment of a mighty day. 15 Tell them: 'Had Allah so willed, I would not have recited the Qur'an to you, nor would Allah have informed you of it. I have spent a lifetime among you before this. Do you, then, not use your reason? 16 Who, then, is a greater wrong-doer than he who forges a lie against Allah or rejects His signs as false? Surely the guilty shall not prosper. 17 and [neither will] they [who] worship, side by side with God, things or beings that can neither harm nor benefit them, saying [to themselves,] "These are our intercessors with God!" Say: "Do you [think that you could] inform God of anything in the heavens or on earth that He does not know? Limitless is He in His glory, and sublimely exalted above anything to which men may ascribe a share in His divinity!" 18 Men were once a community of one faith; but they differed (and followed different ways). Had it not been for the word proclaimed by your Lord before, their differences would have been resolved. 19 And they say: "How is it that not a sign is sent down on him from his Lord?" Say: "The unseen belongs to Allah Alone, so wait you, verily I am with you among those who wait (for Allah's Judgement)." 20