The unbelievers said to their apostles: "We shall drive you out of our land, or else you come back to our fold." Their Lord then communicated to them: "We shall annihilate these wicked people, 13 and will then cause you to settle in the land as their successors. That is the reward for him who fears to stand for reckoning and holds My threat in awe." 14 And they asked for judgment and every insolent opposer was disappointed: 15 Hell is before him, and he is made to drink a festering water, 16 he will sip and will not find it easy to swallow it. Death will approach him from every quarter, yet he will not die. More intense suffering will lie ahead of him. 17 [This, then, is] the parable of those who are bent on denying their Sustainer: all their works are as ashes which the wind blows about fiercely on a stormy day: [in the life to come,] they cannot achieve any benefit whatever from all [the good] that they may have wrought: for this [denial of God] is indeed the farthest one can go astray. 18 Do you not see that God has created the heavens and the earth for a purpose? He can eliminate you if He wills and bring into being a new creation: 19 Nor is that for Allah any great matter. 20 They all come forth unto their Lord. Then those who were despised say unto those who were scornful: We were unto you a following, can ye then avert from us aught of Allah's doom? They say: Had Allah guided us, we should have guided you. Whether we rage or patiently endure is (now) all one for us; we have no place of refuge. 21