No sooner than We bestow mercy on a people after hardship has hit them than they begin to scheme against Our signs. Tell them: 'Allah is swifter in scheming. Our angels are recording all your intriguing. 21 It is He who enables you to travel over land and sea. When you sail in ships in a favourable breeze, you rejoice. But when a gale begins to blow and the waves dash against them from every side they realise that they have been caught in it, (and) they call on God in all faith: "If You save us from this we shall ever be grateful." 22 Then when He delivereth them they forthwith rebel in the earth without justice. O ye! your rebellion is only against yourselves: a brief enjoyment of the life of the world; thereafter unto Us is your return; then We will declare unto you that which ye have been working. 23 The likeness of this present life is as water that We send down out of heaven, and the plants of the earth mingle with it whereof men and cattle eat, till, when the earth has taken on its glitter and has decked itself fair, and its inhabitants think they have power over it, Our command comes upon it by night or day, and We make it stubble, as though yesterday it flourished not. Even so We distinguish the signs for a people who reflect. 24 (You are being lured by this ephemeral world) although Allah calls you to the abode of peace and guides whomsoever He wills to a straightway. 25 ۞ the good-doers the reward most fair and a surplus; neither dust nor abasement shall overspread their faces. Those are the inhabitants of Paradise, therein dwelling forever. 26 And those who have earned evil deeds, the recompense of an evil deed is the like thereof, and humiliating disgrace will cover them (their faces). No defender will they have from Allah. Their faces will be covered, as it were, with pieces from the darkness of night. They are dwellers of the Fire, they will abide therein forever. 27 We will tell the pagans on the day when every one is resurrected, "Stand with your idols wherever you are." Then We will separate them (from their idols) and their idols will protest against them saying, "You did not worship us. 28 God suffices as a witness between us and you. We were entirely unaware that you worshipped us." 29 There! Every person will know (exactly) what (all) he had earned before, and they will be brought back to Allah, their rightful Lord (Maula), and their invented false deities will vanish from them. 30