They will then be told: "Call upon those for help whom you declared to be Our associates."1 They will then call upon them but they will not answer them. They will have observed the chastisement in front of them. Would that they were guided!
Footnotes
[1]
That is, “Invoke them for help. In the world you had relied on them and rejected Our commandments. So invoke them to come to your rescue here also and save you from the punishment.”
[2]Qira’at: Ibn Kathir and Ibn ʻAmer read it as: “. . . who kept killing their children . . .”