وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَمْلِكُ لَهُمْ رِزْقًا مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ
Wa ya'budoona min doonil laahi maa laa yamliku lahum rizqam minas samaawaati wal ardi shai'anw wa laa yastatee'oon
Czy oni mają czcić, poza Bogiem, to, co nie może im dać żadnego zaopatrzenia, ani z niebios, ani z ziemi, i nie jest zdolne nic uczynić?
And they worship, beside God, what holds no power to provide them anything from the heavens or the earth — and never could.
Arabic changes number inside the sentence: the verb of owning stands singular, suited to a thing, and the closing verb of ability comes out plural, suited to persons, so what is worshipped is described first as an object and then as a group. The test applied is provision, the word carrying the passage just above, where provision, spouses and children were counted out one by one. Worship is weighed here by what a thing can supply.