۞ O YOU who have attained to faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding equity, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God's claim takes precedence over [the claims of] either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort [the truth,] behold, God is indeed aware of all that you do! 135 Believers! Believe in Allah and His Messenger and in the Book He has revealed to His Messenger, and in the Book He revealed before. And whoever disbelieves in Allah, in His angels, in His Books, in His Messengers and in the Last Day, has indeed strayed far away. 136 Those who believe, and then disbelieve, and then believe, and then disbelieve, and then increase in unbelief-God is not likely to forgive them, neither to guide them on any way. 137 Give glad tidings to the hypocrites, that for them is a painful punishment. 138 As for those who take the deniers of the truth for their allies in preference to the believers - do they hope to be honoured by them when, behold, all honour belongs to God [alone]? 139 Allah has enjoined upon you in the-Book that when you hear the signs of Allah being rejected and scoffed at, you will not sit with them until they engage in some other talk, or else you will become like them. Know well, Allah will gather the hypocrites and the unbelievers in Hell - all together. 140 Those (hyprocrites) who wait and watch about you; if you gain a victory from Allah, they say: "Were we not with you," but if the disbelievers gain a success, they say (to them): "Did we not gain mastery over you and did we not protect you from the believers?" Allah will judge between you (all) on the Day of Resurrection. And never will Allah grant to the disbelievers a way (to triumph) over the believers. 141