What has happened to you, O believers, that when you are asked to set out in the cause of God your feet begin to drag? Do you find the life of the world so pleasing that you forget the life to come? Yet the profit of the life of this world is but meagre as compared to the life to come. 38 If you do not go forth, He will punish you with a painful punishment and will replace you with another people, and you will not harm Him at all. And Allah is over all things competent. 39 If you do not help him, Allah will help him as He helped him when he was driven out with one other (Abu Bakr) by the unbelievers. When the two were in the cave, he said to his companion: 'Do not sorrow, Allah is with us' Then Allah caused His tranquility (shechina) to descend upon him and supported him with legions (of angels) you did not see, and He made the word of the unbelievers the lowest, and the Word of Allah is the highest. Allah is Mighty, Wise. 40 Go forth to war, whether it be easy or difficult [for you,] and strive hard in God's cause with your possessions and your lives: this is for your own good - if you but knew it! 41 Had the gain been immediate and the journey shorter, they would have followed you: but the distance seemed too great for them. Yet they will swear by God, "Had we been able, we would have gone out with you." They bring ruin upon themselves. God knows that they are surely lying. 42