Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
Your Lord suffices
as one well aware and percipient of His servants’ sins.
18 Whoever desires this transitory life,
We expedite for him therein
whatever We wish,
for whomever We desire.
Then We appoint hell for him,
to enter it, blameful and spurned.
19 Whoever desires the Hereafter
and strives for it with an endeavour worthy of it,
should he be faithful
— the endeavour of such will be well-appreciated.
20 To these and to those — to all We extend
the bounty of your Lord,
and the bounty of your Lord is not confined.
21 Observe
how We have given some of them an advantage
over some others;
yet the Hereafter is surely greater in respect of ranks
and greater in respect of relative merit.1
22 Do not set up another god besides Allah,
or you will sit blameworthy, forsaken.
23 Your Lord has decreed
that you shall not worship anyone except Him,
and [He has enjoined] kindness to parents.
Should they reach old age at your side
— one of them or both —
1 Or ‘greater in respect of preferment.’
