itatingly confess it.

Say: If the laws and regulations to which ye cleave be of your own making,
We will, in no wise, follow them. Thus have I been instructed by Him Who
is the All-Wise, the All-Informed. Such hath been My way in the past, and
such will it remain in the future, through the power of God and His might.
This, indeed, is the true and right way. If they be ordained by God, bring
forth, then, your proofs, if ye be of them that speak the truth. Say: We
have written down in a Book which leaveth not unrecorded the work of any
man, however insignificant, all that they have imputed to Thee, and all
that they have done unto Thee.

Say: It behoveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep the precepts of God,
and to forsake your own laws and regulations, and to be of them who are
guided aright. Better is this for you than all ye possess, did ye but know
it. If ye transgress the commandment of God, not one jot or one tittle of
all your works shall be acceptable in His sight. Ye shall, erelong,
discover the consequences of that which ye shall have done in this vain
life, and shall be repaid for them. This, verily, is the truth, the
undoubted truth.

How great the number of those who, in bygone ages, have committed the
things ye have committed, and who, though superior to you in rank, have,
in the end, returned unto dust, and been consigned to their inevitable
doom! Would that ye might ponder the Cause of God in your hearts! Ye shall
follow in their wake, and shall be made to enter a habitation wherein none
shall be found to befriend or help you. Ye shall, of a truth, be asked of
your doings, shall be called to account for your failure in duty with
regard to the Cause of God, and for having disdainfully rejected His loved
ones who, with manifest sincerity, have come unto you.

It is ye who have taken counsel together regarding them, ye that have
preferred to follow the promptings of your own desires, and forsaken the
commandment of God, the Help in Peril, the Almighty.

Say: What! Cleave ye to your own devices, and cast behind your backs the
precepts of God? Ye, indeed, have wronged your own selves and others.
Would that ye could perceive it! Say: If your rules and principles be
founded on justice, why is it, then, that ye follow those which accord
with your corrupt inclinations and reject such as conflict with your
desires? By what right claim ye, then, to judge fairly between men? Are
your rules and principles such as