From the translation by Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss)

About the translator:
Muhammad Asad, Leopold Weiss, was born of Jewish parents in Livow, Austria (later Poland) in 1900, and at the age of 22 made his first visit to the Middle East. He later became an outstanding foreign correspondent for the Franfurter Zeitung, and after his conversion to Islam travelled and worked throughout the Muslim world, from North Africa to as far east as Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. After years of devoted study he became one of the leading Muslim scholars of our age. His translation of the Holy Qur’an is one of the most lucid and well-referenced works in this category, dedicated to “li-qawmin yatafakkaroon” (For people who think).

Chapter 57, verse 16

Is it not time that the hearts of all who have attained to faith should feel humble at the remembrance of God and of all the truth that has been bestowed [on them] from on high, [ 1 ] lest they become like those who were granted revelation aforetime, and whose hearts have hardened with the passing of time so that many of them are [now] depraved? [ 2 ]

Chapter 57, verses 20-21

Know [O men] that the life of this world is but a play and a passing delight, and a beautiful show, and [the cause of] your boastful vying with one another, and [of your] greed for more and more riches and children.
Its parable is that of [life-giving] rain: the herbage which it causes to grow delights the tillers of the soil; but then it withers, and thou canst see it turn yellow; and in the end it crumbles to dust.
But [the abiding truth of man’s condition will become fully apparent] in the life to come: [either] suffering severe or God’s forgiveness and His goodly acceptance: for the life of this world is nothing but an enjoyment of self-delusion.
[Hence,] vie with one another in seeking to attain to your Sustainer’s forgiveness, and [thus] to a paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, which has been readied for those who have attained to faith in God and His Apostle; such is the bounty of God which He grants unto whomever He wills - for God is limitless in His great bounty.
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Translator’s Notes

[ 1 ] I.e., “Should not the remembrance of God and His revelation make them humble rather than proud?” This is an emphatic warning against all smugness, self-righteousness and false pride at having “attained to faith” – a failing which only too often attains to such as consider themselves “pious”.
[ 2 ] I.e., so that now they act contrary to the ethical precepts of their religion: implying that the purpose of all true faith is to make man humble and God-conscious rather than self-satisfied, and that a loss of that spiritual humility invariably results in moral degeneration.

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