The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

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The Quran 2: 92
already have. Say [Muhammad], ‘Why did you kill God’s prophets
in the past if you were true believers? 92 Moses brought you clear
signs, but then, while he was away, you chose to worship the calf –
you did wrong.’
93 Remember when We took your pledge, making the mountain
tower above you, and said, ‘Hold on firmly to what We have given
you, and listen to [what We say].’ They said, ‘We hear and we disobey,’
and through their disbelief they were made to drink [the love
of] the calf deep into their hearts. 94 Say, ‘How evil are the things
your belief commands you to do, if you really are believers!’ Say, ‘If
the last home with God is to be for you alone and no one else, then
you should long for death, if your claim is true.’ 95 But they will
never long for death, because of what they have stored up with their
own hands: God is fully aware of the evildoers. 96 [Prophet], you are
sure to find them clinging to life more eagerly than any other people,
even the polytheists. Any of them would wish to be given a life of a
thousand years, though even such a long life would not save them
from the torment: God sees everything they do.
97 Say [Prophet], ‘If anyone is an enemy of Gabriel – who by
God’s leave brought down the Quran to your heart confirming previous
scriptures as a guide and good news for the faithful – 98 if
anyone is an enemy of God, His angels and His messengers, of
Gabriel and Michael, then God is certainly the enemy of such disbelievers.’
99 For We have sent down clear messages to you and only
those who defy [God] would refuse to believe them. 100 How is it that
whenever they make a covenant or a pledge, some of them throw it
away? In fact, most of them do not believe.
101 When God sent them a messenger confirming the Scriptures
they already had, some of those who had received the Scripture
before threw the Book of God over their shoulders as if they had no
knowledge, 102 and followed what the evil ones had fabricated about
the Kingdom of Solomon instead. Not that Solomon himself was a
disbeliever; it was the evil ones who were disbelievers. They taught
people witchcraft and what was revealed in Babylon to the two
angels Harut and Marut. Yet these two never taught anyone without
first warning him, ‘We are sent only to tempt – do not disbelieve.’
From these two, they learned what can cause discord between man
and wife, although they harm no one with it except by God’s leave.
They learned what harmed them, not what benefited them, knowing