The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

302 The Quran
40: 10
protect on that Day from [the punishment for] evil deeds will receive
Your mercy – that is the supreme triumph.’ 10 But those who disbelieved
will be told, ‘When you were called to the faith and rejected
it, God’s disgust with you was even greater then than the self-disgust
you feel [today].’ 11 They will say, ‘Our Lord, twice You have caused
us to be lifeless a and twice You have brought us to life. Now we
recognize our sins. Is there any way out?’ 12 [They will be told], ‘This
is all because when God alone was invoked you rejected this, yet
when others were associated with Him you believed [in them].’
Judgement belongs to God the Most High, the Most Great.
13 It is He who shows you [people] His signs and sends water down
from the sky to sustain you, though only those who turn to God will
take heed. 14 So call upon God and dedicate your religion to Him
alone, however hateful this may be to the disbelievers: 15 He is exalted
in rank, the Lord of the Throne. He sends revelations with His
teachings to whichever of His servants He will, in order to warn of
the Day of Meeting, 16 the Day when they will come out and nothing
about them will be concealed from God. ‘Who has control today?’
‘God, the One, the All Powerful. 17 Today each soul will be rewarded
for whatever it has done; today no injustice will be done. God is swift
in reckoning.’
18 Warn them [Prophet] of the ever-approaching Day, when hearts
are at throats, choking them. The evildoer will have no friends, nor
any intercessor to be heeded. 19 God is aware of the most furtive of
glances, and of all that hearts conceal: 20 God will judge with truth,
while those they invoke besides Him will not judge at all. God is the
All Hearing, the All Seeing.
21 Have they not travelled through the land and seen how those
who lived before them met their end? They were stronger than them
and made a more impressive mark on the land, yet God destroyed
them for their sins – they had no one to defend them against Him –
22 because messengers repeatedly came to them with clear signs and
still they rejected them. God destroyed them: He is truly full of
strength, severe in punishment.
a Literally ‘dead’, leading some commentators to interpret this as referring to one’s
initial death, followed shortly thereafter by a second ‘death’ after questioning in the
grave. The more generally accepted view, however, is that earthly life is both preceded
and succeeded by a state of lifelessness. The two acts of giving life therefore refer to
birth and resurrection.