[the people of] Iram the many-pillared,

[As for your adopted children,] call them by their [real] fathers' names: this is more equitable in the sight of God; and if you know not who their fathers were, [call them] your brethren in faith and your friends.* However, you will incur no sin if you err in this respect:* [what really matters is] but what your hearts intend - for God is indeed much-forgiv­ing, a dispenser of grace!

But whoever deliberately slays another be­liever, his requital shall be hell, therein to abide; and God will condemn him, and will reject him, and will prepare for him awesome suffering.

O you who have attained to faith! Kill no game while you are in the state of pilgrimage. And whoever of you kills it intentionally,* [shall make] amends in cattle equivalent to what he has killed - with two persons of probity giving their judgment thereon- to be brought as an offering to the Ka`bah;* or else he may atone for his sin by feeding the needy, or by the equivalent thereof in fasting:* [this,] in order that. he taste the full gravity of his deed, [while] God shall have effaced the past. But whoever does it again, God will inflict His retribution on him: for God is almighty, an avenger of evil.

It is God who has raised the heavens without any supports that you could see, and is established on the throne of His almightiness;* and He [it is who] has made the sun and the moon subservient [to His laws], each running its course for a term set [by Him].* He governs all that exists. Clearly does He spell out these messages, so that you might be certain in your innermost that you are destined to meet your Sustainer [on Judgment Day].*

He [it is who] has created the skies without any supports that you could see,* and has placed firm mountains upon the earth, lest it sway with you,* and has caused all manner of living creatures to multiply thereon. And We* send down water from the skies, and thus We cause every noble kind [of life] to grow on earth.*

in endless columns!*