أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَلِقَآئِهِۦ فَحَبِطَتْ أَعْمَٰلُهُمْ فَلَا نُقِيمُ لَهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ وَزْنًا · إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ كَانَتْ لَهُمْ جَنَّٰتُ ٱلْفِرْدَوْسِ نُزُلًا · خَٰلِدِينَ فِيهَا لَا يَبْغُونَ عَنْهَا حِوَلًا
"Those are the ones who disbelieved in the signs of their Lord and in the meeting with Him; their deeds have come to nothing. On the Day of Resurrection We shall set up no weighing for them. As for those who believe and do righteous deeds, for them the gardens of Firdaws are a lodging; they will remain there always and will not wish to be moved from it."
In al-Anbiyāʾ at 21/47 (wa naḍaʿu'l-mawāzīna'l-qisṭ) the setting down of the balance may have been treated; in al-Ḥadīd mīzān was analysed.
I record this as my own reading: the verse does not report a punishment — it reports that the operation is not performed. And this is the natural consequence of the diagnosis in the hundred and fourth verse: those whose effort has gone astray have nothing left to be weighed.
حَبِطَتْ — root ح-ب-ط: an animal's eating a harmful plant, swelling and dying — growth from without, rot from within. The root was analysed in al-Ḥujurāt at 49/2. I do not repeat it here.
And the word's placement here is worth recording: in the hundred and fourth verse the person supposed he was doing good work. The word ḥabṭ describes exactly this: what looks swollen from outside and is rotted from within.
فِرْدَوْس — a garden, land with trees and water. The word occurs in two places in the Qurʾān (here and al-Muʾminūn 23/11). The lexicographers also record that the word may have entered Arabic from another language; I issue no definite ruling.
نُزُل — the first hospitality set before a guest. The word was treated in detail in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/56 and 56/93 and it was recorded there: to say "the first hospitality" is to imply that more will follow. I rely on that treatment.
حِوَل — root ح-و-ل: to change state, to pass from one place to another. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.
I record this as an observation, and its support is the sūra as a whole: throughout the sūra everything changed — the People of the Cave woke, the garden was ruined, the barrier will be brought down, the earth will become dry ground. The one thing named at the close is that the wish to change is gone.