O you who have attained to faith! If you remain conscious of God He will endow you with a standard by which to discern the true from the false, and will efface your bad deeds, and will forgive you your sins; for God is limitless in His great bounty. 29 Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed -- but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 30 And when Our communications are recited to them, they say: We have heard indeed; if we pleased we could say the like of it; this is nothing but the stories of the ancients. 31 And [remember] when they said, "O Allah, if this should be the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the sky or bring us a painful punishment." 32 But Allah was not to chastise them while you are in their midst; nor was Allah going to chastise them while they sought His forgiveness. 33 And why should not Allah punish them while they stop (men) from Al-Masjid-al-Haram, and they are not its guardians? None can be its guardian except Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2), but most of them know not. 34 And their prayer at the House is nothing but a whistling and a clapping of hands -- therefore taste you now the chastisement for your unbelief! 35 Those who disbelieve spend their wealth to bar (others) from the Path of Allah. They will spend it; but it will become a regret for them, then they will be overcome. The unbelievers shall be gathered in Gehenna, 36 so that Allah may separate the bad from the good, and join together all those who are bad into a pile one upon another, and cast them into Hell. They, it is they who are the losers. 37