And when the habit of the deniers was to say in denial: 'This is a threat to us of destruction,' then declare it clearly and do not spare any effort in bringing it upon us and hastening it to us. For we will not abandon what we are upon for anything. And the Arabs also claimed that the habit of their death and the emergence of those after them, bit by bit, does not change. Allah, the Exalted, responded to them saying: 'Then We raised up' meaning by Our greatness which is not affected by advance or delay. And He affirmed the connection to what preceded by saying: 'after them' meaning after those whom We mentioned, namely Noah and the generation that followed: 'other generations.'