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THE QUR'ÂN. LXVIII, 11-32. biter, a walker about with slander; a forbidder of good, a transgressor, a sinner; rude, and base-born too; though he have wealth and sons !
[15] When our signs are recited to him he says, Old folks' tales !' We will brand him on the snout !
Verily, we have tried them as we tried the fellows of the garden when they swore, 'We will cut its fruit at morn!
But they made not the exception?; and there came round about it an encompassing calamity from thy Lord the while they slept; [20] and on the morrow it was as one the fruit of which is cut.
And they cried to each other in the morning, 'Go early to your tilth if ye would cut it !
So they set off, saying privily to each other, There shall surely enter it to-day unto you no poor person !'
[25] And they went early deciding to be stingy?.
And when they saw it they said, 'Verily, we have erred! Nay, we are forbidden (its fruit)!'
Said the most moderate of them, 'Said I not to you, "unless ye celebrate God's praises !")
Said they, 'Celebrated be the praises of our Lord ! verily, we were unjust!'
[30] And they approached each other with mutual blame.
Said they, 'O woe to us! verily, we have been outrageous! Haply our Lord may give us instead a better than it; verily, we unto our Lord do yearn.'
* I. e. they did not add, 'If God please ! ? Or, according to another interpretation, with a determined
purpose.'
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