“No nation can precede its appointed term, nor can they delay it. Then We sent Our messengers in succession. Whenever a nation’s messenger came to it, they denied him. So We made them follow one another and turned them into tales. Away, then, with a people who do not believe.”

Every nation has an appointed time and a fixed term, which it can neither precede nor delay. We sent them messengers in succession so that they might believe and turn back. Yet disbelief and denial remained the habitual way of disobedient nations and rebellious disbelievers. Whenever a nation’s messenger came to it, they denied him, even though every messenger brought signs of the kind that lead human beings to believe. Indeed, the messengers’ very call and revealed law attest to the truth of what they brought.

“So We made them follow one another” into destruction, until not a single remnant of them remained and their dwellings stood deserted after them. “And We turned them into tales” recounted by later generations, so that they would be a lesson for the God-fearing, a deterrent to the deniers, and a disgrace upon them coupled with their punishment. “Away, then, with a people who do not believe.” How wretched they are! Ruin be upon them—what a losing bargain they have made!