The Prophet ﷺ said, "The best of people are my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them." The narrator said, "I do not know whether he mentioned it after the third or the fourth generation." Then the Prophet ﷺ continued, "After them will come a people whose testimony precedes their oath and whose oath precedes their testimony."
حدثنا أزهر بن سعد أخبرنا ابن عون عن إبراهيم عن عبيدة
عن النبي ﷺ قال خير الناس قرني الذين يلوني ثم الذين يلونهم ثم الذين يلونهم قال ولا أدري أقال في الثالثة أو في الرابعة ثم يخلف بعدهم خلف تسبق شهادة أحدهم يمينه ويمينه شهادته
Its chain of transmission is sahih, and this is a repetition of 3594. Azhar bin Saad, his reliability was already established at 996. In H it reads "Zuhayr bin Saad," which is an error, and we have corrected it from K.Khalf, with sukun on the lam. Ibn Athir said, al-khalaf, with fatha, and al-khalf, with sukun, both mean everyone who comes after those who have passed, except that the form with fatha is used for good and the form with sukun is used for evil. One says "khalaf sidq" (a righteous successor) and "khalf saw" (a corrupt successor). Both together carry the meaning of a generation of people. "Qarni" (my generation) appears in H as "aqrani" (my peers), and we have corrected it from K.