[3:24] That, because they said, 'the Fire shall not touch us, except for a number of days'; and the lies they used to invent have deluded them in their religion.
We have punished them in this world, drawing them on by degrees (bi'l-istidrāj) until they [presume to] determine salvation and the lessening of punishment for themselves, but they will come to know the doubling of affliction upon them. They think they are on to something but they are liars. [It is] the conjecture of those in error [presented] as judgment.