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 He it is who enableth you to travel by land and sea until when ye are in ships and they run away with them with a goodly wind and they rejoice thereat, there cometh upon them a tempestuous wind and there cometh unto them a billow from every side, and they imagine that they are encompassed therein, they cry unto Allah making their faith pure for Him: If Thou deliverest us from this we would surely be of those who are thankful. 22 But no sooner than He delivers them than they go about committing excesses on the earth, acting unjustly. Men! The excesses you commit will be of harm only to yourselves, (Enjoy, if you will) the fleeting pleasure of this world; in me end you shall all return to Us, and then We shall tell you what you did. 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 Allah calls to the home of peace (i.e. Paradise, by accepting Allah's religion of Islamic Monotheism and by doing righteous good deeds and abstaining from polytheism and evil deeds) and guides whom He wills to a Straight Path. 25 ۞ For them who have done good is the best [reward] and extra. No darkness will cover their faces, nor humiliation. Those are companions of Paradise; they will abide therein eternally 26 Those who do evil deeds, the recompense of an evil deed is its like, and humiliation shall spread over them and there will be none to protect them from Allah. Darkness will cover their faces as though they were veiled with the dark blackness of night. These are the people of the Fire and in it they shall abide. 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 Allah's witness suffices between you and us that (even if you worshipped us) we were totally unaware of your worshipping us. 29 Here will every soul come to know what it has sent ahead, and they will be returned to Allah – their true Master, and they will lose all that they used to fabricate. 30