وَأُتْبِعُوا۟ (And they were followed) is a past tense verb — the action already happened and is complete.

We translate it in past tense — "did", "created", "said", etc.

وَأُتْبِعُوا۟ (And they were followed) is passive — the action is happening to someone, but who is doing it is not mentioned.

We translate it as "is/was [done]" — e.g. "was created", "is known".

وَأُتْبِعُوا۟ (And they were followed) uses form IV (أَفْعَلَ) — the أ at the start makes it causative ("to make someone do something").

We translate it as "to make [someone] do" or "to cause [action]".

وَأُتْبِعُوا۟ (And they were followed) starts with وَ, the most common Arabic word — it means "and".

We add "and" to connect this to what came before.