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 'Run not! Return you unto the luxury that you exulted in, and your dwelling-places; haply you shall be questioned.' 13 "Woe, alas," they said, "we were really sinful." 14 Such was what they continued to say until We mowed them down and made them completely extinct. 15 We created not the heaven and the earth and all that is between them in play. 16 If We willed to choose a pastime, We could have chosen it from Ourselves – if We wanted to. 17 Nay, We hurl the Truth against falsehood, and it knocks out its brain, and behold, falsehood doth perish! Ah! woe be to you for the (false) things ye ascribe (to Us). 18 To Him belongs whoever is in the heavens and the earth. And those near Him are not prevented by arrogance from His worship, nor do they tire. 19 They never fail to exalt Him either at night or in the day. 20 Or, have they taken earthly gods who revive the dead? 21 If other than Allah, there were gods* in the heavens and the earth, they would be destroyed; therefore Purity is to Allah, Owner of the Throne, from the matters that they fabricate. (* Which is not possible.) 22 He cannot be questioned for His acts, but they will be questioned (for theirs). 23 Or have they chosen other gods beside Him? say: Bring your proof (of their godhead). This is the Reminder of those with me and those before me, but most of them know not the Truth and so they are averse. 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 hath taken unto Himself a son. Be He Glorified! Nay, but (those whom they call sons) are honoured slaves; 26 they do not try to speak ahead of Him, and they act at His command. 27 He knows all that lies open before them and all that is hidden from them: hence, they cannot intercede for any but those whom He has [already] graced with His goodly acceptance, since they themselves stand in reverent awe of Him. 28 ۞ And one of them who should say: Lo! I am a god beside Him, that one We should repay with hell. Thus We Repay wrong-doers. 29