21. O ye folk! serve your Lord who created you and those before you; haply ye may fear!

22. who made the earth for you a bed and the heaven a dome; and sent down from heaven water, and brought forth therewith fruits as a sustenance for you; so make no peers for Allah, the while ye know!

23. And if ye are in doubt of what we have revealed unto our servant, then bring a chapter like it, and call your witnesses other than Allah if ye tell truth.

24. But if ye do it not, and ye shall surely do it not, then fear the fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for misbelievers.

25. But bear the glad tidings to those who believe and work righteousness, that for them are gardens beneath which rivers flow; whenever they are provided with fruit therefrom they say, 'This is what we were provided with before,' and they shall be provided with the like; and there are pure wives for them therein, and they shall dwell therein for aye.

26. Why, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable of a gnat, or anything beyond; and as for those who believe, they know that it is truth from the Lord; but as for those who disbelieve, they say, 'What is it that Allah means by this as a parable? He leads astray many and He guides many;' -- but He leads astray only the evildoers;

27. who break Allah's covenant after the fixing thereof, and cut asunder what Allah has ordered to be joined, and do evil in the earth; -- these it is who lose.

28. How can ye disbelieve in Allah, when ye were dead and He made you alive, and then He will kill you and then make you alive again, and then to Him will ye return?

29. It is He who created for you all that is in the earth, then he made for the heavens and fashioned them seven heavens; and He knows all things.

30. And when thy Lord said unto the angels, 'I am about to place a vicegerent in the earth,' they said, 'Wilt Thou place therein one who will do evil therein and shed blood? we celebrate Thy praise and hallow Thee.' Said (the Lord), 'I know what ye know not.'