O believers, if you follow the path shown by God, He will give you a standard (of right and wrong), and overlook your sins, and forgive you. God is abounding in benevolence. 29 And recall what time those who disbelieved were plotting against thee to confine thee or to slay thee or to drive thee forth: they were plotting and Allah was plotting, and Allah is the Best of plotters. 30 When Our Signs are rehearsed to them, they say: "We have heard this (before): if we wished, we could say (words) like these: these are nothing but tales of the ancients." 31 And when they said, “O Allah! If this (the Qur’an) is really the truth from You, then shower upon us a rain of stones from the sky, or bring upon us some painful punishment.” 32 And it is not for Allah to punish them while you O dear Prophet (Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him) are amongst them; and Allah will not punish them as long as they are seeking forgiveness. (Prophet Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him – is a mercy unto mankind.) 33 But why should Allah not punish them while they obstruct [people] from al-Masjid al- Haram and they were not [fit to be] its guardians? Its [true] guardians are not but the righteous, but most of them do not know. 34 Their Prayer at the House is nothing but whistling and handclapping. Taste, then, this chastisement for your denying the truth. 35 Behold, those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their riches in order to turn others away from the path of God; and they will go on spending them until they become [a source of] intense regret for them; and then they will be overcome! And those who [until their death] have denied the truth shall be gathered unto hell, 36 so that God might separate the bad from the good, and join the bad with one another, and link them all together [within His condemnation,] and then place them in hell. They, they are the lost! 37