Page:Koran - Rodwell - 2nd ed.djvu/259

 came to you, until when he died, ye said, ‘God will by no means raise up an apostle after him.’” Thus God misleadeth him who is the transgressor, the doubter.

They who gainsay the signs of God without authority having come to them, are greatly hated by God and by those who believe. Thus God sealeth up every proud, contumacious heart.

And Pharaoh said, “O Haman, Build for me a tower that I may reach the avenues,

The avenues of the heavens, and may mount to the God of Moses, for I verily deem him a liar.”

And thus the evil of his doings was made fair-seeming to Pharaoh, and he turned away from the path of truth; but the artifice of Pharaoh ended only in his ruin.

And he who believed said, “O my people! follow me: into the right way will I guide you.

O my people! this present life is only a passing joy, but the life to come is the mansion that abideth.

Whoso shall have wrought evil shall not be recompensed but with its like; but whoso shall have done the things that are right, whether male or female, and is a believer these shall enter paradise: good things unreckoned shall they enjoy therein.

And, my people! how is it that I bid you to salvation, but that ye bid me to the fire?

Ye invite me to deny God, and to join with him gods of whom I know nothing; but I invite you to the Mighty, the Forgiving.

No doubt is there that they to whom ye invite me are not to be invoked either in this world or in the world to come: and that unto God is our return, and that the transgressors shall be the inmates of the fire.

Then shall ye remember what I am saying unto you: and to God commit I my case: Verily, God beholdeth his servants.”

So God preserved him from the evils which they had planned, and the woe of the punishment encompassed the people of Pharaoh.

It is the fire to which they shall be exposed morning and