How many a city that was evildoing We have shattered, and set up after it another people! 11 And when they tasted Our punishment, they immediately started fleeing from it. 12 Flee not, and return unto that wherein ye luxuriated and your habitations, haply ye will be questioned. 13 They said: O woe to us! surely we were unjust. 14 And that cry of theirs ceased not, till We made them as a field that is mown, as ashes silent and quenched. 15 We did not create in sport the heavens and the earth and all that lies between the two. 16 Had We intended that We should choose a sport, surely We would choose it from before Us - if We were ever going to do that. 17 Nay! We cast the truth against the falsehood, so that it breaks its head, and lo! it vanishes; and woe to you for what you describe; 18 To Him belongs whosoever is in the heavens and the earth; and those who are with Him wax not too proud to do Him service neither grow weary, 19 They never fail to exalt Him either at night or in the day. 20 Have they taken deities from the earth who can bring the dead to life? 21 Had there been any gods in the heavens and the earth apart from Allah, the order of both the heavens and the earth would have gone to ruins. Glory be to Allah, the Lord of the Throne, Who is far above their false descriptions of Him. 22 He will not be questioned as to that which He doeth, but they will be questioned. 23 Or have they taken gods apart from Him? Say: 'Bring your proof! This is the Remembrance of him who is with me, and the Remembrance of those before me. Nay, but the most part of them know not the truth, so therefore they are turning away. 24 We have not sent an apostle before you without instructing him that there is no god but I, so worship Me. 25 And they say: The Beneficent Allah has taken to Himself a son. Glory be to Him. Nay! they are honored servants 26 They do not precede Him in speech and (only) according to His commandment do they act. 27 He knows what is before them, and what is behind them, and they cannot intercede except for him with whom He is pleased. And they stand in awe for fear of Him. 28 ۞ And if any of them should say: "Verily, I am an ilah (a god) besides Him (Allah)," such a one We should recompense with Hell. Thus We recompense the Zalimun (polytheists and wrong-doers, etc.). 29