Then the earthquake surprised them; and in the morning they were found dead on their faces in their dwellings.

So he turned away from them, and said, “O my people!  I did indeed announce to you the message of my Lord:  and I gave you faithful counsel, but ye love not faithful counsellors.20

We also sent Lot, when he said to his people, commit ye this filthy deed in which no creature hath gone before you?

Come ye to men, instead of women, lustfully?  Ye are indeed a people given up to excess.

But the only answer of his people was to say, “Turn them out of your city, for they are men who vaunt them pure.”

And we delivered him and his family, except his wife; she was of those who lingered: 

And we rained a rain upon them:  and see what was the end of the wicked!

And we sent to Madian21 their brother Shoaib.  He said, “O my people! worship God; ye have no other God than Him:  now hath a clear sign come to you from your Lord:  give therefore the full in measures and weights; take from no man his chattels, and commit no disorder on the earth after it has been made so good.  This will be better for you, if you will believe it.

And lay not in ambush by every road in menacing sort; nor mislead him who believeth in God, from His way, nor seek to make it crooked; and remember when ye were few and that he multiplied you, and behold what hath been the end of the authors of disorder!

And if a part of you believe in that with which I am sent, and a part of you believe not, then wait steadfastly until God shall judge between us, for He is the best of judges.”

Said the chiefs of his people puffed up with pride, “We will surely banish thee, O Shoaib, and thy fellow-believers from our cities, unless indeed ye shall come back to our religion.”  “What!” said he, “though we abhor it?

Now shall we have devised a lie concerning God, if after he hath delivered us from your religion we shall return to it; nor can we return to it, unless by the will of God our Lord:  our Lord embraceth all things in his ken.  In God have we put our trust:  O our Lord! decide between us and between our people, with truth; for the best to decide art Thou.”

And the chiefs of his people who believed not, said, “If ye follow Shoaib, ye shall then surely perish.”

An earthquake therefore surprised them, and they were found in the morning dead on their faces, in their dwellings.

Those who had treated Shoaib as an impostor, became as though they had never dwelt in them:  they who treated Shoaib as an impostor, were they that perished.

So he turned away from them and said, O my people!  I proclaimed to you the messages of my Lord, and I counselled you aright; but how should I be grieved for a people who do not believe?

Nor did we ever send a prophet to any city without afflicting its people with adversity and trouble, that haply they might humble them.22