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 blots out, and He establishes what He will. With Him is the Essence 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 they not seen how We come to the land diminishing it in its extremities? God judges; none repels His judgment; He is swift at the reckoning. 41 Those before them did also devise plots; but in all things the master planning is God's. He knows what each soul does. Those who deny the truth shall soon know for whom is the final abode. 42 Yet those who are disbelievers say: "You are not the apostle sent (by God)." Tell them: "God is sufficient as witness between me and you, and he who has knowledge of the Book." 43