People pray as earnestly to gain evil as one should to gain virtue. But people are hasty. 11 We have appointed the night and the day as two signs; then We have blotted out the sign of the night, and made the sign of the day to see, and that you may seek bounty from your Lord, and that you may know the number of the years, and the reckoning; and everything We have distinguished very distinctly. 12 Every man's fate We have fastened on his own neck: On the Day of Judgment We shall bring out for him a scroll, which he will see spread open. 13 [and he will be told:] "Read this thy record! Sufficient is thine own self today to make out thine account!" 14 Whoever chooses to follow the right path, follows it but for his own good; and whoever goes astray, goes but astray to his own hurt; and no bearer of burdens shall be made to bear another's burden. Moreover, We would never chastise [any community for the wrong they may do] ere We have sent an apostle [to them]. 15 And when We would destroy a township We send commandment to its folk who live at ease, and afterward they commit abomination therein, and so the Word (of doom) hath effect for it, and we annihilate it with complete annihilation. 16 How many generations have We destroyed after Noah? and enough is thy Lord to note and see the sins of His servants. 17 If any do wish for the transitory things (of this life), We readily grant them - such things as We will, to such person as We will: in the end have We provided Hell for them: they will burn therein, disgraced and rejected. 18 And whoever desires the hereafter and strives for it as he ought to strive and he is a believer; (as for) these, their striving shall surely be accepted. 19 All [of them] - these as well as those - do We freely endow with some of thy Sustainer's gifts, since thy Sustainer's giving is never confined [to one kind of man]. 20 See, how We have exalted some above others in this world, and in the Life to Come they will have higher ranks and greater degrees of excellence over others. 21 DO NOT set up any other deity side by side with God, lest thou find thyself disgraced and forsaken: 22