Have you ever considered the seed which you cast upon the soil?

[Moses] answered: "Behold, He says it is to be a cow not broken-in to plough the earth or to water the crops, free of fault, without markings of any other colour."Said they: "At last thou hast brought out the truth!"-and thereupon they sacrificed her, although they had almost left it undone.*

But whenever he prevails, he goes about the earth spreading corruption and destroying [man's] tilth and progeny:* and God does not love corruption.

Your wives are your tilth; go, then, unto your tilth as you may desire, but first provide something for your souls,* and remain conscious of God, and know that you are destined to meet Him. And give glad tidings unto those who believe.

ALLURING unto man is the enjoyment of worldly desires through women, and children, and heaped-up treasures of gold and silver, and horses of high mark, and cattle, and lands. All this may be enjoyed in the life of this world - but the most beauteous of all goals is with God.

The parable of what they spend on the life of this world is that of an icy wind which smites the tilth of people who have sinned against themselves, and destroys it: for, it is not God who does them wrong, but it is they who are wronging themselves.*

AND OUT OF whatever He has created of the fruits of the field and the cattle, they assign unto God a portion, saying, "This belongs to God"-or so they [falsely] claim* - "and this is for those beings who, we are convinced, have a share in God's divinity."* But that which is assigned to the beings associated in their minds with God does not bring [them] closer to God - whereas that which is assigned to God brings [them but] closer to those beings to whom they ascribe a share in His divinity.* Bad, indeed, is their judgment!

And they say, "Such-and-such cattle and fruits of the field are sacred; none may eat thereof save those whom we will [to do so]" -so they [falsely] claim;* and [they declare that] it is forbidden to burden the backs of certain kinds of cattle; and there are cattle over which they do not pronounce God's name* - falsely attributing [the origin of these customs] to Him. [But] He will requite them for all their false imagery.

AND [remember] David and Solomon - [how it was] when both of them gave judgment concerning the field into which some people's sheep had strayed by night and pastured therein, and [how] We bore witness to their judgment:*

To him who desires a harvest in the life to come, We shall grant an increase in his harvest; whereas to him who desires [but] a harvest in this world, We [may] give something thereof - but he will have no share in [the blessings of] the life to come.*

"Go early to your tilth if you want to harvest the fruit!"