They keep returning, yet I have lengthened the span for them: I have overlooked their sins, increased My favors, prolonged their lives, and offered every excuse so that perhaps they might take heed. Throughout all this I sent the sky to pour down rain, caused the earth to push forth its crops, clothed them in well-being, and granted them victory over their enemies—yet they only grow in arrogance and in remoteness from Me. How much longer shall this go on? Are they mocking Me? Are they trying to provoke Me? Do they think they can deceive Me? Or do they dare defy Me?
By My might, I swear I will loose upon them a trial so bewildering that the wise will be confounded, sound judgments will go astray, and the very sagacity of the sage will be lost. Then I shall set over them a tyrant—harsh, defiant, pitiless—whom I will cloak in awe while stripping his heart of tenderness and mercy. I have decreed that hosts as dark as the blackest night will follow him: armies like masses of cloud, squadrons like swirling dust. The rustle of their standards will sound like the flight of eagles, the charge of their horsemen like a flock of hawks.
They will turn flourishing cities into ruins and villages into desolate waste; they will rampage across the land sowing corruption and demolish whatever they overrun. Their hearts will be like stone: they will neither care nor soften, show no mercy, see nothing, hear nothing. They will roam the marketplaces with voices like a lion’s roar—skins will crawl at their awe, minds will reel at their sound. Their tongues will be foreign, their faces stamped with a strangeness unknown to those who behold them.
By My might, I will empty their homes of My books and sanctity, strip their gatherings of discourse and study of My words, and render their mosques desolate of the worshipers and visitors who once adorned them for anyone but Me—those who kept night vigil and performed devotions only to barter religion for worldly gain, who studied jurisprudence for motives other than faith, who sought knowledge with no intention to act upon it. I will replace the honor of their kings with humiliation, security with fear, wealth with poverty, bounty with hunger, and their long-enjoyed ease and prosperity with every kind of affliction. Their garments of silk and brocade will give way to coarse haircloth and rough wool; their fragrant oils to the stench of slaughtered corpses; their crowns to collars of iron, to chains and fetters.
After spacious palaces and fortified citadels I will bring devastation; after lofty towers, the lairs of wild beasts; after the neighing of horses, the howling of wolves; after lamplight, the smoke of burning; after conviviality, loneliness and deserted wastelands. I will exchange the bracelets of their women for shackles, their necklaces of pearls and rubies for iron chains, their perfumes and ointments for dust and grime. Instead of treading upon carpets, they will be driven through markets and rivers, hurrying on into the night through the depths of bazaars; instead of hidden chambers and curtains, they will be exposed—faces unveiled in streets and on journeys, their breaths seared by scorching winds.
Then I shall trample them with every form of punishment, so that even if one of them were hiding in the remotest mountain crag, that torment would reach him there. I honor only those who honor Me, and I abase only those who belittle My command. In the midst of all this I shall command the sky so that it becomes—