The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

The Qur
an
35: 12
278

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most forgiving. 
29Those who recite God’s scripture, keep up the
prayer, give secretly and openly from what We have provided for
them, may hope for a trade that will never decline: 
30He will repay
them in full, and give them extra from His bounty. He is most
forgiving, most appreciative.
31The Scripture We have revealed to you [Prophet] is the Truth
and con
firms the scriptures that preceded it. God is well informed
about His servants, He sees everything. 
32We gave the Scripture as a
heritage to Our chosen servants: some of them wronged their own
souls, some stayed between [right and wrong], and some, by God’s
leave, were foremost in good deeds. That is the greatest favour:
33they will enter lasting Gardens where they will be adorned with
bracelets of gold and pearls, where they will wear silk garments.
34They will say, ‘Praise be to God, who has separated us from all
sorrow! Our Lord is truly most forgiving, most appreciative: 
35He
has, in His bounty, settled us in the everlasting Home where no toil
or fatigue will touch us.’
36But those who reject the truth will stay in
Hell
fire, where they will neither be finished off by death, nor be
relieved from Hell’s torment: this is how We reward hardened dis-
believers. 
37They will cry out loud in Hell, ‘Lord, let us out, and we
will do righteous deeds, not what we did before!’–
–‘ Did We not give
you a life long enough to take warning if you were going to? The
warner came to you, now taste the punishment.’ The evildoers will
have nobody to help them.
38God knows all that is hidden in the heavens and earth; He
knows the thoughts contained in the heart; 
39it is He who made
you [people] successors to the land. Those who deny the truth will
bear the consequences: their denial will only make them more
odious to their Lord, and add only to their loss. 
40Say, ‘Consider
those “partners” of yours that you call upon beside God. Show me!
What part of the earth did they create? What share of the heavens
do they possess?’ Have We given them a book that contains clear
evidence? No indeed! The idolaters promise each other only
delusion.
41God keeps the heavens and earth from vanishing; if they did
vanish, no one else could stop them. God is most forbearing, most
forgiving. 
42[The idolaters] swore their most solemn oath that, if
someone came to warn them, they would be more rightly guided than
any [other] community, but when someone did come they turned
The Creator
279
35: 42

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yet further away, 
43became more arrogant in the land, and intensified
their plotting of evil –
– the plotting of evil only rebounds on those
who plot. Do they expect anything but what happened to earlier
people? You will never 
find any change in God’s practice; you will
never 
find any deviation there. 44Have they not travelled in the land
and seen how those before them met their end, although they were
superior to them in strength? God is not to be frustrated by anything
in the heavens or on the earth: He is all knowing, all powerful. 
45If
God were to punish people [at once] for the wrong they have done,
there would not be a single creature left on the surface of the earth.
He gives them respite for a stated time and, whenever their time
comes, God has been watching His servants.
The Qur
an
35: 43
280

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36. YA SIN