فَخَلَفَ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِمْ خَلْفٌ أَضَاعُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَٱتَّبَعُوا۟ ٱلشَّهَوَٰتِ فَسَوْفَ يَلْقَوْنَ غَيًّا
"After them came a generation who let the prayer go to waste and followed their appetites; they will meet the penalty of their straying."
خَلْف — root خ-ل-ف: to come after. The word carries a negative sense here, and the lexicographers record a difference in usage between khalf (a bad generation that comes after) and khalaf (a good successor). I transmit this distinction as the lexicographers give it.
أَضَاعُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ — iḍāʿa: to let go to waste, to lose. The verb is not "they abandoned" — they lost.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the choice of verb: losing is different from putting down deliberately. A thing can stay in the hand while it is emptied out. And indeed the verse does not say that the prayer was not performed but that it was let go to waste.
إِلَّا مَن تَابَ وَءَامَنَ وَعَمِلَ صَٰلِحًا (60) — and the exception comes immediately after. The same exception was treated in al-Furqān 25/70; I rely on that treatment.