| | Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar rendition of Surah The Ascending Stairways, The Ladders(al-Ma`arij)
--- |
|---|
| 70:1 | | One who supplicates asked for a punishment that will fall |
| 70:2 | | on the ones who are ungrateful for which there will be no one to avert |
| 70:3 | | from God, the Possessor of the Stairways of Ascent. |
| 70:4 | | The angels and the Spirit go up to Him on a Day whose measure had been fifty thousand years. |
| 70:5 | | So have thou patience with a graceful patience. |
| 70:6 | | Truly, they see it as distant, |
| 70:7 | | but We see it as near at hand. |
| 70:8 | | On a Day the heaven will become as molten copper |
| 70:9 | | and the mountains be as wool clusters |
| 70:10 | | and no loyal friend will ask a loyal friend, |
| 70:11 | | although they are given sight of them. One who sins would wish that he offer for ransom —from the punishment of that day—his children |
| 70:12 | | or his companion wife, or his brother |
| 70:13 | | or his relatives who gave him refuge, |
| 70:14 | | or whoever is on the earth altogether, again, if that would rescue him. |
| 70:15 | | No indeed. Truly, it is the furnace of hell |
| 70:16 | | removing their scalps, |
| 70:17 | | calling whoever drew back and turned away |
| 70:18 | | and gathered wealth and amassed. |
| 70:19 | | Truly, the human being was created fretful. |
| 70:20 | | When the worst afflicted him, he is impatient. |
| 70:21 | | And when the good afflicted him, begrudging. |
| 70:22 | | But the ones who formally pray, |
| 70:23 | | those, they are ones who continue with their formal prayers |
| 70:24 | | and those who in their wealth there is a known obligation towards |
| 70:25 | | the one who begs and the one who is deprived |
| 70:26 | | and those who sincerely validate the Day of Judgment. |
| 70:27 | | And those, they are ones who are apprehensive of the punishment of their Lord. |
| 70:28 | | Truly, as to the punishment of their Lord, there is no one who is safe from it. |
| 70:29 | | Those, they are ones who guard their private parts, |
| 70:30 | | but not from their spouses or what their right hands possessed. Truly, they are not ones who will be reproached. |
| 70:31 | | But whoever was looking beyond that, those, they are ones who turn away. |
| 70:32 | | And those, they who in their trusts and to their compacts are ones who shepherd. |
| 70:33 | | And those, they who, giving their testimony, are ones who uphold. |
| 70:34 | | And those, they who over their formal prayers are watchful. |
| 70:35 | | Those will be in Gardens, ones who are honored. |
| 70:36 | | What is with those who were ungrateful—ones who run forward towards thee, eyes fixed in horror, |
| 70:37 | | to the right and the left, tied in knots. |
| 70:38 | | Is not every man of them desirous of being caused to enter into a Garden of Bliss? |
| 70:39 | | No indeed. Truly, We created them out of what they know. |
| 70:40 | | So I swear an oath by the Lord of the rising places and the setting places, that We certainly are ones who have power |
| 70:41 | | to substitute better for them. And We are not ones who are outrun. |
| 70:42 | | So let them engage in idle talk and play until they encounter the Day of theirs that they are promised, |
| 70:43 | | the Day when they will go forth swiftly from their tombs as though they had been hurrying to a goal |
| 70:44 | | with their sight, that which is humbled. Abasement will come over them. That is the Day which they had been promised. |
