Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
and eat thereof whence you wish;
and say, “Relieve [us of the burden of our sins],”
and enter prostrating at the gate,
that We may forgive your iniquities,
and soon We shall enhance the virtuous.’1
162 But the wrongdoers changed the saying
with other than what they had been told.
So We sent against them a plague from the sky
because of the wrongs they used to commit.
163 Ask them 2
about the town that was situated on the seaside,
when they violated the Sabbath,
when their fish would come to them
on the Sabbath day,
visibly on the shore,
but on days when they were not keeping Sabbath
they would not come to them.
Thus did We test them
because of the transgressions they used to commit.
164 When a group of them said,
‘Why do you advise a people whom Allah will destroy
or punish with a severe punishment?’
They said, ‘As an excuse before your Lord,
and [with the hope] that they may be Godwary.’
165 So when they forgot what they had been reminded of
We delivered those who forbade evil [conduct]
and seized the wrongdoers with a terrible punishment
because of the transgressions they used to commit.
