If any one desireth greatness, all greatness is in God. The good word riseth up to Him, and the righteous deed will He exalt. But a severe punishment awaiteth the plotters of evil things; and the plots of such will He render vain. Moreover, God created you of dust–then of the germs of life–then made you two sexes: and no female conceiveth or bringeth forth without his knowledge; and the aged ageth not, nor is aught minished from man's age, but in accordance with the Book. An easy thing truly is this to God. Nor are the two seas2 alike: the one fresh, sweet, pleasant for drink, and the other salt, bitter; yet from both ye eat fresh fish, and take forth for you ornaments to wear, and thou seest the ships cleaving their waters that ye may go in quest of his bounties, and that ye may be thankful. He causeth the night to enter in upon the day, and the day to enter in upon the night; and He hath given laws to the sun and to the moon, so that each journeyeth to its appointed goal: This is God your Lord: All power is His: But the gods whom ye call on beside Him have no power over the husk of a date stone! If ye cry to them they will not hear your cry; and if they heard they would not answer you, and in the day of resurrection they will disown your joining them with God: and none can instruct thee like Him who is informed of all. O men! ye are but paupers in need of God; but God is the Rich, the Praiseworthy! If He please, He could sweep you away, and bring forth a new creation! Nor will this be hard for God. And the burdened soul shall not bear the burden of another: and if the heavy laden soul cry out for its burden to be carried, yet shall not aught of it be carried, even by the near of kin! Thou shalt warn those who fear their Lord in secret, and observe prayer. And whoever shall keep himself pure, he purifieth himself to his own behoof: for unto God shall be the final gathering. And the blind and the seeing are not alike; neither darkness and light; nor the shade and the hot wind; Nor are the living and the dead the same thing! God indeed shall make whom He will to hearken, but thou shalt not make those who are in their graves to hearken; for only with warning art thou charged. Verily we have sent thee with the truth; a bearer of good tidings and a warner; nor hath there been a people unvisited by its warner. And if they treat thee as a liar, so did those who were before them threat their Apostles who came to them with the proofs of their mission, and with the Scriptures and with the enlightening Book:3 Then chastised I the unbelievers: and how great was my vengeance!