40

Lo! We have warned you, O disbelievers of Mecca, of a chastisement that is near, the chastisement of the impending Day of Resurrection - for anything that is impending is [also] near - the day (yawma adverbially qualifies 'adhāban, 'a chastisement', by describing it) when a person, [when] every person, will behold what his hands have sent ahead, of good and evil, and the disbeliever will say, 'O (yā is a particle used to call attention to something) would that I were dust!', in other words, and not be chastised. He says this when Allahu ta’ālā, exalted be He, says to the beasts, after each of them has retaliated against the other, 'Be dust!'.