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XXV, 21-30. THE CHAPTER OF THE DISCRIMINATION. 85
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And he of you who does wrong we will make him taste great torment.
We have not sent before thee any messengers but that they ate food and walked in the markets; but we have made some of you a trial to others : will ye be patient ? thy Lord doth ever look.
And those who do not hope to meet us say, 'Unless the angels be sent down to us, or we see our Lord ....!' They are too big with pride in their souls and they have exceeded with a great excess !
The day they shall see the angels -no glad tidings on that day for the sinners, and they shall say, 'It is rigorously forbidden 1!
[25] And we will go on to the works which they have done, and make them like motes in a sunbeam scattered! The fellows of Paradise on that day shall be in a better abiding-place and a better noonday rest.
The day the heavens shall be cleft asunder with the clouds, and the angels shall be sent down descending
The true kingdom on that day shall belong to the Merciful, and it shall be a hard day for the misbelievers.
And the day when the unjust shall bite his hands 2 and say, 'O, would that I had taken a way with the Apostle 8! [30] O, woe is me! would that I had
1 The ancient Arabs used this formula when they met an enemy during a sacred month, and the person addressed would then abstain from hostilities. The sinners in this passage are supposed to use it to the angels, but without effect. Some commentators take it to mean that the 'glad tidings' are 'rigorously forbidden,' and that the angels are the speakers.
2 See Chapter III, verse 115. 3 That is, followed him.
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