AND SET FORTH unto them a parable - [the story of how] the people of a township [behaved] when [Our] message-bearers came unto them. 13 When We sent two of them they called them liars; so We sent a third to strengthen them. "We have been sent to you," they said. 14 But they said: 'You are only humans like ourselves. The Merciful has not sent down anything, your speech is but lies' 15 They said, "Our Lord knows that We are Messengers 16 And our duty is but plain conveyance (of the message). 17 They said, 'We augur ill of you. If you give not over, we will stone you and there shall visit you from us a painful chastisement.' 18 (The messengers) said: "The augury is within your own selves. Do you (consider it a bad omen) that you should be warned? You are a people guilty of excess." 19 And from the outermost part of the city came a man running; he said, “O my people! Obey those who have been sent.” 20 Follow such as ask no wage of you, that are right-guided. 21 "It would not be reasonable in me if I did not serve Him Who created me, and to Whom ye shall (all) be brought back. 22 Should I take to worshipping [other] deities beside Him? [But then,] if the Most Gracious should will that harm befall me, their intercession could not in the least avail me, nor could they save me: 23 “Undoubtedly, I am then in open error.” 24 "Verily, [O my people,] in the Sustainer of you all have I come to believe: listen, then, to me!" 25 It was said: "Enter thou the Garden." He said: "Ah me! Would that my People knew (what I know)!- 26 "That my Lord (Allah) has forgiven me, and made me of the honoured ones!" 27 ۞ And We did not send down upon his people after him any hosts from heaven, nor do We ever send down. 28 It was only a single blast which made them extinct. 29 Woe to human beings! Whenever a Messenger came to them, they mocked him. 30 Have they not seen how many generations, living before them, had We destroyed and they cannot ever come back to them? 31 and [that] all of them, all together, will [in the end] before Us be arraigned? 32