And We have already sent messengers before you and assigned to them wives and descendants. And it was not for a messenger to come with a sign except by permission of Allah. For every term is a decree. 38 Allah erases and confirms whatever He wills; and only with Him is the real script. 39 And whether We shew thee part of that which We have promised them, or We take thee away; on thee is only the preaching, and on Us is the reckoning. 40 Do they not see that We are bringing destruction upon the land by curtailing it of its sides? And Allah pronounces a doom-- there is no repeller of His decree, and He is swift to take account. 41 Those that were before them devised; but God's is the devising altogether. He knows what every soul earns. The unbelievers shall assuredly know whose will be the Ultimate Abode. 42 The disbelievers say, “You are not a (Noble) Messenger (of Allah)”; proclaim, “Allah is a Sufficient Witness between me and you, and (so is) he who has knowledge of the Book.” 43