O YOU who have attained to faith! If you pay heed to those who are bent on denying the truth, they will cause you to turn back on your heels, and you will be the losers. 149 Nay, Allah is your protector, and He is the best of helpers. 150 Soon We shall cast awe in the hearts of disbelievers because they have appointed partners to Allah, for which He has not sent any proof; their destination is hell; and what a wretched abode for the unjust! 151 AND, INDEED, God made good His promise unto you when, by His leave, you were about to destroy your foes - until the moment when you lost heart and acted contrary to the [Prophet's] command, and disobeyed after He had brought you within view of that [victory] for which you were longing. There were among you such as cared for this world [alone,] just as there were among you such as cared for the life to come: whereupon, in order that He might put you to a test, He prevented you from defeating your foes. But now He has effaced your sin: for God is limitless in His bounty unto the believers. 152 ۞ When you were running away and did not look back at anyone, while the Messenger was calling to you from behind, He paid you back with one sorrow after another, so that you might not grieve for what you lost, nor for what befell you. God is aware of what you do. 153 Then after distress, He sent down upon you security [in the form of] drowsiness, overcoming a faction of you, while another faction worried about themselves, thinking of Allah other than the truth - the thought of ignorance, saying, "Is there anything for us [to have done] in this matter?" Say, "Indeed, the matter belongs completely to Allah." They conceal within themselves what they will not reveal to you. They say, "If there was anything we could have done in the matter, some of us would not have been killed right here." Say, "Even if you had been inside your houses, those decreed to be killed would have come out to their death beds." [It was] so that Allah might test what is in your breasts and purify what is in your hearts. And Allah is Knowing of that within the breasts. 154 Those of you who turned back on the day the two hosts met (i.e. the battle of Uhud), it was Shaitan (Satan) who caused them to backslide (run away from the battlefield) because of some (sins) they had earned. But Allah, indeed, has forgiven them. Surely, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Forbearing. 155