۞ And remember the brother of Ad, when he warned his people beside the sand-dunes -- and already warners had passed away alike before him and behind him -- saying, 'Serve none but God! Truly I fear for you the chastisement of a dreadful day. 21 They said: art thou come unto us that thou mayest turn us aside from our gods? then bring thou upon us that wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou art of the truth-tellers. 22 He said: the knowledge is only with Allah, and I preach unto you that wherewith I have been sent, but I see you are a people given to ignorance. 23 When they saw the scourge advancing towards their valleys, they said: “This is a cloud that will bring much rain to us.” “By no means; it is what you had sought to hasten -- a wind-storm bearing a grievous chastisement 24 It will destroy everything by the will of its Lord" (Not very long after) nothing could be seen of them except their dwellings. Thus do We recompense the sinful people. 25 We had empowered them to an extent which We have not empowered you, [O people of later times]; and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, since they went on rejecting God's revelations; and they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26