When the decree of God is issued, satan will say, "God's promise to you was true, but I, too, made a promise to you and disregarded it. I had no authority over you. I just called you and you answered. Do not blame me but blame yourselves. I cannot help you and you cannot help me. I did not agree with your belief that I was equal to God." The unjust will face a painful punishment. 22 The righteously striving believers will be admitted to the gardens wherein streams flow and they will live therein forever, by the permission of their Lord. Their greeting to each other will be, "Peace be with you." 23 Do you not see how God compares a noble act to a healthy tree whose roots are firm and branches in the sky, which yields 24 Giving its fruit at every season by permission of its Lord? Allah coineth the similitudes for mankind in order that they may reflect. 25 An evil act is like a rotten tree torn out of the earth with no (base or) firmness. 26 [Thus,] God grants firmness unto those who have attained to faith through the word that is unshakably true in the life of this world as well as in the life to come; but the wrongdoers He lets go astray: for God does whatever He wills. 27