O you assembly of jinns and men, did not apostles come to you from among you, communicating My signs to you, bringing warnings of this your day (of Doom)?" They will answer: "We bear witness to our sins." They were surely deluded by the life of the world, and bore witness against themselves because they were unbelievers. 130 This is because your Lord would not destroy the (populations of) towns for their wrong-doing (i.e. associating others in worship along with Allah) while their people were unaware (so the Messengers were sent). 131 For all are degrees of rank according to their deeds; your Lord is not unaware of anything they do. 132 Your Lord is all-sufficient and full of benevolence. He can take you away if He please, and make whom He will succeed you, as He had raised you from the progeny of others. 133 Whatever you are promised will inevitably come true and you can do nothing to prevent it. 134 Say (O Muhammad!): 'O people! Work in your place; and I too am at work. Soon you will know in whose favour the ultimate decision will be. Surely the wrong-doers will not prosper.' 135 They allocate a share from God's own created fields and cattle to God, and they say: "This is God's" -- or so they think -- "and that, of the compeers of God," so that what belongs to the compeers does not reach God, but that which is God's may reach the compeers (set up by them). How bad is the judgement that they make! 136 And in like manner, their associate gods have made killing their children seem fair to many pagans, so that they may ruin them and cause confusion in their religion. Had God pleased, they would not have done so; so leave them to their false inventions. 137 They say: 'These animals and these crops are sacrosanct: none may eat of them save those whom we will' - imposing interdictions of their own contriving. And they declare that it is forbidden to burden the backs of certain cattle, and these are the cattle over which they do not pronounce the name of Allah. All these are false fabrications against Allah, and He will soon requite them for all that they fabricate. 138 And they said, “The animals in the bellies of such cattle are purely for our males and forbidden to our women; and if the animal is stillborn, they all have a share of it”; soon Allah will repay them for their utterances; indeed He is Wise, All Knowing. 139 They will surely perish who kill their offspring in ignorance foolhardily, and forbid the food that God has given them by fabricating lies against God. Misguided are they surely, and will never come to guidance. 140