And We have already sent messengers before you and assigned to them wives and descendants. And it was not for a messenger to come with a sign except by permission of Allah. For every term is a decree. 38 Allah doth blot out or confirm what He pleaseth: with Him is the Mother of the Book. 39 Whether We show you part of what We have promised them or cause you to pass away [before that], your mission is only to give warning; it is for Us to do the reckoning. 40 Have, then, they [who deny the truth] never yet seen how We visit the earth [with Our punishment,] gradually depriving it of all that is best thereon? For, [when] God judges, there is no power that could repel His judgment: and swift in reckoning is He! 41 Those who lived before them also devised many a plot, but the master plot rests with Allah. He knows what everyone does. The deniers of the truth will soon come to know whose end is good. 42 The Unbelievers say: "No messenger art thou." Say: "Enough for a witness between me and you is Allah, and such as have knowledge of the Book." 43