We gave the Book to Moses and gave him his brother Aaron as a minister. 35 Then We said: Go you both to the people who rejected Our communications; so We destroyed them with utter destruction. 36 And Noah's folk, when they denied the messengers, We drowned them and made of them a portent for mankind. We have prepared a painful doom for evil-doers. 37 And (the tribes of) A'ad and Thamud, and the dwellers in Ar-Rass, and many generations in between. 38 We administered warnings to each of them, and then destroyed them completely. 39 Indeed they must have come upon the town on which an evil rain had poured down. Did they not see it? Yet they have no faith in the Resurrection. 40 And when they see thee (O Muhammad) they treat thee only as a jest (saying): Is this he whom Allah sendeth as a messenger? 41 He had well-nigh led us astray from our gods had we not adhered to them patiently! And they will know, when they see the punishment, who is straying farther off from the path. 42 Hast thou ever considered [the kind of man] who makes his own desires his deity? Couldst thou, then, [O Prophet,] be held responsible for him? 43 Or deemest thou that most of them hear or understand? They are but as the cattle - nay, but they are farther astray? 44