Surah 40. Ghafir, Ayah 83

I.e., they were fully satisfied with their own empirically or speculatively acquired or inherited knowledge; and so, in their arrogant conviction that man is "self-sufficient" and, therefore, not in need of any guidance by a Power beyond the reach of human perception, they rejected whatever ethical and spiritual truths were offered them by the prophets.

I.e., the idea of God's existence and inescapable judgment: see 6:10 and the corresponding note [9].

 And ridiculed the divine knowledge brought to them by their messengers.

Cf. xvi. 34. Nothing could stop Justice of Allah punishing Evil. What they had ridiculed came as an inexorable fact. None of their grandeur or art or science or skill was of any use when they lost their souls!

Arrogance and an exaggerated idea of Self were at the bottom of the Evil to which they succumbed.