Tell My bondmen to speak that which is kindlier. Lo! the devil soweth discord among them. Lo! the devil is for man an open foe. 53 Your Lord knows you better: He may have mercy on you if He please, or punish you if He will. Yet We have not sent you as warden over them. 54 Your Lord knows whoever is in the heavens and the earth. We exalted some of the prophets over the others; and to David We gave the Book of Psalms. 55 Say: "Call on those - besides Him - whom ye fancy: they have neither the power to remove your troubles from you nor to change them." 56 Those [saintly beings] whom they invoke are themselves striving to obtain their Sustainer's favour - [even] those among them who are closest [to Him] - hoping for His grace and dreading His chastisement: for, verily, thy Sustainer's chastisement is something to beware of! 57 And [bear in mind:] there is no community which We will not destroy before the Day of Resurrection, or chastise [even earlier, if it proves sinful,] with suffering severe: all this is laid down in Our decree. 58 Naught prevented Us from sending the signs but that the ancients cried lies to them; and We brought Thamood the She-camel visible, but they did her wrong. And We do not send the signs, except to frighten. 59 And (remember) when We told you: "Verily! Your Lord has encompassed mankind (i.e. they are in His Grip)." And We made not the vision which we showed you (O Muhammad as an actual eye-witness and not as a dream on the night of Al-Isra') but a trial for mankind, and likewise the accursed tree (Zaqqum, mentioned) in the Quran. We warn and make them afraid but it only increases them in naught save great disbelief, oppression and disobedience to Allah. 60