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1Sad. CONSIDER this Qur’an, endowed with all that one ought to remember!

2But nay - they who are bent on denying the truth are lost in [false] pride, and [hence] deeply in the wrong.

3How many a generation have We destroyed before their time [for this very sin]! And [how] they called [unto Us] when it was too late to escape!

4Now these [people] deem it strange that a warner should have come unto them from their own midst - and [so] the deniers of the truth are saying: “A [mere] spellbinder is he, a liar!

5Does he claim that all the deities are [but] one God? Verily, a most strange thing is this!”

6And their leaders launch forth [thus]: “Go ahead, and hold steadfastly onto your deities: this, behold, is the only thing to do!

7Never did we hear of [a claim like] this in any faith of latter days! It is nothing but [a mortal man’s] invention!

8What! Upon him alone from among all of us should a [divine] reminder have been bestowed from on high?” Nay, but it is My Own reminder that they distrust! Nay, they have not yet tasted the suffering which I do impose!

9Or do they [think that they] own the treasures of thy Sustainer’s grace - [the grace] of the Almighty, the Giver of Gifts?

10Or [that] the dominion over the heavens and the earth and all that is between them is theirs? Why, then, let them try to ascend [to God-like power] by all [conceivable] means!

11[But] there it is: any and all human beings, however [strongly] leagued together, are bound to suffer defeat [whenever they refuse to accept the truth].

12To the truth gave the lie aforetime Noah’s people, and [the tribe of] Ad, and Pharaoh of the [many] tent-poles,

13and [the tribe of] Thamud, and the people of Lot, and the dwellers of the wooded dales [of Madyan]: they all were leagued together, [as it were, in their unbelief:]

14not one [was there] but gave the lie to the apostles - and thereupon My retribution fell due.

15And they [who now deny the truth - they, too,] have but to wait for one single blast [of punishment to overtake them]: it shall not be delayed a whit.

16As it is, they say [mockingly]: “O our Sus­tainer! Hasten on to us our share [of punishment even] before the Day of Reckoning!”