Those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity say: "Were Allah to will so, neither we nor our forefathers would have worshipped any other than Him, nor would we have prohibited anything without His command." Their predecessors proffered similar excuses. Do the Messengers have any other duty but to plainly convey the Message? 35 We raised a Messenger in every community (to tell them): "Serve Allah and shun the Evil One." Thereafter Allah guided some of them while others were overtaken by error. Go about the earth, then, and observe what was the end of those who rejected the Messengers, calling them liars. 36 If you desire for their guidance, yet surely Allah does not guide him who leads astray, nor shall they have any helpers. 37 They swear emphatically in the name of God that God will not raise the dead. On the contrary, it is a promise incumbent on Him, though most men do not understand, 38 this is so that He may make clear to them what they have differed about and so that those who are bent on denying the truth may realize that they were lying. 39 Our only saying unto a thing, when We intend it, is that We say unto it: be, and it becometh. 40