Then that did not benefit them. They said, boasting and indicating that they are the winners, as these people said to you: 'We are more.'

And when wealth is often a reason for the abundance of children by increasing the number of free women and maidservants, He presented it and said: 'Wealth and children,' meaning in this world. And if He was not pleased with what we are upon, He would not have granted us that. 'And we are not,' meaning now, 'being punished,' meaning our punishment is established. Rather, we are presented with light conditions of illness and hardships that are lighter than your conditions. And our current state is a sign of our situation in what is to come in time, whatever it may be. For indeed, the state is a model of the outcome, and the first is a proof of the latter. If there is an afterlife as you say, then we are happier than you in it, just as we are happier than you now. And the story of Sheba did not benefit them in that, for if they had reflected, it would have sufficed them and illuminated their insights and corrected the diseases of their hearts and healed them. For they were the best of people in condition, yet they became the worst of them in outcome.