۞ Say: "Do you refuse to believe in Him who created the earth in two spans of time, and set up compeers to Him, the Lord of all the worlds? 9 He placed therein firm hills rising above it, and blessed it and measured therein its sustenance in four Days, alike for (all) who ask; 10 Then He lifted Himself to heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth, "Come willingly, or unwillingly!" They said, "We come willingly." 11 And He [it is who] decreed that they become seven heavens in two aeons, and imparted unto each heaven its function. And We adorned the skies nearest to the earth with lights, and made them secure: such is the ordaining of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. 12 If even then they turn away, tell them: "I forewarn you of a terrible punishment like the thunderbolt that fell upon the 'Ad and Thamud." 13 When the Messengers came unto them from before them and from behind them, saying, 'Serve none but God,' they said, 'Had our Lord willed, surely He would have sent down angels; so we disbelieve in the Message you were sent with.' 14 As for Ad, they waxed proud in the land without justification and said: “Who is greater than we in strength?” Did they not see that Allah, Who created them, is greater in strength than they? They continued to deny Our Signs, 15 So We sent on them a furious wind in unlucky days, that We may make them taste the chastisement of abasement in this world's life; and certainly the chastisement of the hereafter is much more abasing, and they shall not be helped. 16 And as for Thamud, We guided them, but they preferred blindness over guidance, so the thunderbolt of humiliating punishment seized them for what they used to earn. 17 and We saved [only] those who had attained to faith and were conscious of Us. 18