76 Say:  Of all that lieth between heaven and earth, naught can stir except by My leave, and unto My Kingdom none can ascend save at My behest.  My creatures, however, have remained veiled from My might and My sovereignty, and are numbered with the heedless.  Say:  Naught is seen in My revelation but the Revelation of God, and in My might but His Might, could ye but know it.  Say:  My creatures are even as the leaves of a tree.  They proceed from the tree, and depend upon it for their existence, yet remain oblivious of their root and origin.  We draw such similitudes for the sake of Our discerning servants that perchance they may transcend a mere plant-like level of existence and attain unto true maturity in this resistless and immovable Cause.  Say:  My creatures are even as the fish of the deep.  Their life dependeth upon the water, and yet they remain unaware of that which, by the grace of an omniscient and omnipotent Lord, sustaineth their very existence.  Indeed, their heedlessness is such that were they asked concerning the water and its properties, they would prove entirely ignorant.  Thus do We set forth comparisons and similitudes, that perchance the people may turn unto Him Who is the Object of the adoration of the entire creation.

77 O people!  Fear God, and disbelieve not in Him Whose grace hath surrounded all things, Whose mercy hath pervaded the contingent world, and the sovereign potency of Whose Cause hath encompassed both your inner and your outer beings, both your beginning and your end.  Stand ye in awe of the Lord, and be of them that act uprightly.  Beware lest ye be accounted among those who allow the verses of their Lord to pass them by unheard and unrecognized; these, truly, are of the wayward.

78 Say:  Would ye worship him who neither heareth nor seeth, and who is of a truth the most abject and wretched of all God’s servants?  Wherefore have ye failed to follow the One Who hath come unto you from the Source of Divine Command bearing the tidings of God, the Most Exalted, the Most Great?  O people!  Be not like unto those who presented themselves before Our throne, and yet failed to perceive or comprehend; these are indeed a contemptible people.  We recited unto them verses that would enrapture the dwellers of the heavenly Dominion and the inmates of the Kingdom on high, and yet they departed veiled therefrom, and hearkened rather unto the voice of him who is but a servant of God and a mere creation of His Will.  Thus do We impart unto you that which shall guide you towards the path of God’s favoured ones.

79 How many those who entered within the Abode of Paradise, the Seat wherein the throne of God had been established, and stood before their Lord, the Most Exalted, the Most Great, only to inquire about the four Gates or of some Imam of the Islamic Faith!(9) Such was the state of these souls, if ye be of them that comprehend.  It is even as ye witness in the present day:  those who have disbelieved in God