We sent messengers before you [Prophet] to many communities and afflicted their people with suffering and hardship, so that they might humble themselves. 42 if only, when Our might came upon them, they had been humble! But their hearts were hard, and Satan decked out fair to them what they were doing. 43 Then, when they had forgotten all that they had been told to take to heart, We threw open to them the gates of all [good] things until - even as they were rejoicing in what they had been granted - We suddenly took them to task: and lo! they were broken in spirit; 44 Of the wrong-doers the last remnant was cut off. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher of the worlds. 45 Say: 'What think you? If God seizes your hearing and sight, and sets a seal upon your hearts, who is a god other than God to give it back to you?' Behold how We turn about the signs! Yet thereafter they are turning away. 46 Say: 'What think you? If God's chastisement comes upon you, suddenly or openly, shall any be destroyed, except the people of the evildoers?' 47 We send the messengers only to give good news and to warn, so those who believe and reform themselves need have no fear, nor will they grieve. 48 But those who reject our signs,- them shall punishment touch, for that they ceased not from transgressing. 49 Say thou: I say not unto you, that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor I know the Unseen, nor say unto you that I am an angel; I but follow that which hath been revealed unto me. Say thou: are the blind and the seeing equal? Will ye not then consider? 50