When We let people taste (Our) mercy after they had been afflicted by hardship, they devise against Our verses. Say: 'Allah is more swift in devising' Indeed, Our Messengers (the angels) are writing down whatever you devise. 21 He it is Who enables you to journey through the land and the sea. And so it happens that when you have boarded the ships and they set sail with a favourable wind, and the passengers rejoice at the pleasant voyage, then suddenly a fierce gale appears, and wave upon wave surges upon them from every side, and people believe that they are surrounded from all directions, and all of them cry out to Allah in full sincerity of faith: 'If You deliver us from this we shall surely be thankful. 22 But when He has delivered them, they begin, wrongfully to commit excesses in the land. O you men, your excesses only affect your own selves. Have the enjoyment of the present life. Then to Us you shall return; and We will inform you of all that you have done. 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 And Allah calls to the abode of peace, and guides whomever He wills on the 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 But those who earn evil shall be punished to an equal degree as their evil, and they will be covered with shame, and will have none to protect them against God: Their faces shall be blackened as though with patches of the night. They are the people of Hell, where they will abide for ever, 27 The day We shall gather them all together We shall say to the idolaters: "Take your stand with the compeers you worshipped as the equals of God." We shall then create a rift between them, and the compeers will say: "You did not worship us; 28 And sufficient is Allah as a witness between us and you that we were of your worship unaware." 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