۞ Tell them, (O Prophet): “Do you indeed disbelieve in Him and assign compeers to Him Who created the earth in two days? He is the Lord of all beings of the Universe. 9 And He made in it mountains above its surface, and He blessed therein and made therein its foods, in four periods: alike for the seekers. 10 Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, "Come [into being], willingly or by compulsion." They said, "We have come willingly." 11 And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its command. And We adorned the nearest heaven with lamps and as protection. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing. 12 If they turn away, then say, "I warn you of a lightning-bolt like the one which struck the 'Ad and the 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 So those who were 'Ad turned insolent unjustly in the land, and said: "Who is stronger than us?" Did they not see that God who created them was greater far in power than they? Yet they refused to believe Our signs. 15 whereupon We sent upon them a fierce wind on inauspicious days that We might make them taste a degrading chastisement in the life of this world. And surely the chastisement of the Hereafter is even more degrading. There will be none to help them there. 16 And as for Thamud, We showed and made clear to them the Path of Truth (Islamic Monotheism) through Our Messenger, (i.e. showed them the way of success), but they preferred blindness to guidance, so the Sa'iqah (a destructive awful cry, torment, hit, a thunderbolt) of disgracing torment seized them, because of what they used to earn. 17 And We delivered those who believed and guarded (against evil). 18