Nun. By the pen and what the scribes write.

By your Lord's Grace, you are not afflicted with madness,

and surely yours shall be a never-ending reward,

and you are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence.

So you will soon see, and they too will see,

which of you is afflicted with madness.

Surely your Lord knows well those who have strayed from His Way just as He knows well those who are on the Right Way.

Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false;

they would wish you to be pliant so that they too may be pliant.

And do not yield to any contemptible swearer,

the fault-finder who goes around slandering,

the hinderer of good, the transgressor, the sinful;

the coarse-grained, and above all mean and ignoble;

(who so acts) simply because he has wealth and sons,

and whenever Our verses are rehearsed to him, he says: “These are fairy- tales of times gone by.”

Soon shall We brand him on his snout.

We have put them [i.e., the Makkans] to test even as We put to test the owners of the orchard when they vowed that they would gather the fruit of their orchard in the morning,

without making any allowance (for the will of Allah).

Thereupon a calamity from your Lord passed over it while they were asleep,

and so by morning the orchard lay as though it had been fully harvested.

At daybreak they called out to one another:

“Hurry to your orchard if you would gather its fruit.”

So off they went, whispering to one another:

“No destitute person shall enter it today.”

They went forth early, believing that they had the power (to gather the fruit).

But as soon as they beheld the orchard, (they cried out): “We have certainly lost the way;

rather, we are utterly ruined.”

The best among them said: “Did I not say to you: why do you not give glory to (your Lord)?”

They cried out: “Glory be to our Lord! Certainly we were sinners.”

Then they began to reproach one another.