The Quran

أَفَمَن هُوَ قائِمٌ عَلىٰ كُلِّ نَفسٍ بِما كَسَبَت ۗ وَجَعَلوا لِلَّهِ شُرَكاءَ قُل سَمّوهُم ۚ أَم تُنَبِّئونَهُ بِما لا يَعلَمُ فِي الأَرضِ أَم بِظاهِرٍ مِنَ القَولِ ۗ بَل زُيِّنَ لِلَّذينَ كَفَروا مَكرُهُم وَصُدّوا عَنِ السَّبيلِ ۗ وَمَن يُضلِلِ اللَّهُ فَما لَهُ مِن هادٍ

Muhammad Asad

IS, THEN, HE who has every living being¹ in His almighty care, [dealing with each] according to what it deserves² - [is, then, He like anything else that exists]? And yet, they ascribe to other beings a share in God's divinity! Say: "Give them any name [you please]:³ but do you [really think that you could] inform Him of anything on earth that He does not know - or [do you] but play with words?"⁴ Nay, goodly seems their false imagery⁵ to those who are bent on denying the truth, and so they are turned away from the [right] path: and he whom God lets go astray can never find any guide.⁶

The term nafs has here apparently the general meaning of "soul" or "living being", applying both to humans and animals.
Lit., "what it has acquired" - i.e., according to the exigencies of its life, and - in the case of a human being - according to his or her moral deserts as well.
Lit., "Name them!" Most of the commentators explain this phrase as an expression of utter contempt for those allegedly "divine" beings: i.e., "they are so unreal and meaningless as not to deserve even a name". It is also conceivable that we have here an echo of the statement, to be found in 7:71, 12:40 and 53:23, to the effect that those false objects of worship are but "[empty] names which you have invented". However, in view of the next sentence - which refers to God's omniscience and is similar to 10:18, where imaginary "intercessors" are explicitly mentioned - it is possible to interpret the above phrase still more precisely, viz., "Call them 'divine intercessors', if you so like: but...", etc. (According to Zamakhshari, the particle am, which usually denotes "or", stands here for bal, "nay, but" or simply "but".)
Lit., "or [do you say this] in the outward appearance (bi-zahir) of a saying". Cf. the second part of 10:18 (preceded by a reference to deified "intercessors") and the corresponding note 27.
Lit., "their cunning [or "artful"] device (makr)": but since, as Tabari points out, this term relates here mainly to conscious shirk ("the attribution of divine qualities to aught but God") and, hence, to false religious ideas in general, it can be suitably rendered as above.
See surah 7, note 152, and surah 14, note 4.