40 Preface إِنّا أَنذَرناكُم عَذابًا قَريبًا يَومَ يَنظُرُ المَرءُ ما قَدَّمَت يَداهُ وَيَقولُ الكافِرُ يا لَيتَني كُنتُ تُرابًاYusuf AliVerily, We have warned you of a Penalty near-1 the Day when man will see (the deeds) which his hands have sent forth, and the Unbeliever will say, “Woe unto me! Would that I were (metre) dust!”2Is Judgment very near? Yes. There are three stages of Judgment (1) Many of our sins and wrongdoings find their penalty in this very life. It may not be an open or striking event, but it corrodes the soul and conscience all the time. Let us therefore turn back to God in repentance and ask for forgiveness (2) Where the Penalty is not actually perceived or is not visible in this life, Death is considered the Lesser Judgment for each individual soul: see n. 5822 to 75:22. Death may come to anyone at any time, and we must all be ready for it. (3) Then there is the final Judgment, when the whole of the present order passes away, and there is a New World. Time as we know it will not exist. Fifty thousand years as we reckon now will be but as a Day; 70:4. According to those standards even this Final Judgment is quite near, and we must prepare for it. For it will be too late then for repentance.The Unbeliever, the Rejecter of God, will then find himself in a world of absolute Reality, in which there will be no place for him. He will neither live nor die: 20:74. He will wish that he could be reduced to nothingness, but even that would not be possible.