And when he completed what counters their denial, he followed it with what counters the blessing and said: "And food that chokes." This means food that has a thorny quality in the throat, like [the plant] dhari' and [the tree] zakqum, which gets stuck in it, so it does not allow for ease: it neither descends nor exits, due to what they used to suffer from the purification of food and drink, and exhausting their efforts in achieving all their desires. And because he specified what he meant, he said: "And a painful punishment." This means a punishment that is severe in causing pain, which does not leave them with any sweetness in anything at all, due to what they used to describe their times with and disturb those who called them to what would benefit them by freeing them from the shackles of observable things and ascending from the depths of desires to the heights of the everlasting righteous deeds.