۞ O you who believe, be custodians of justice (and) witnesses for God, even though against yourselves or your parents or your relatives. Whether a man be rich or poor, God is his greater well-wisher than you. So follow not the behests of lust lest you swerve from justice; and if you prevaricate or avoid (giving evidence), God is cognisant of all that you do. 135 O believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has revealed to His Apostle, and the Books revealed before. But he who believes not in God and His angels and the Books and the prophets and the Last Day, has wandered far away. 136 Behold, as for those who come to believe, and then deny the truth, and again come to believe, and again deny the truth, and thereafter grow stubborn in their denial of the truth - God will not forgive them, nor will He guide them in any way. 137 Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment - 138 Those who take unbelievers for guides instead of believers, are they seeking might with them? Surely, the Might altogether belongs to Allah. 139 And indeed, He has enjoined upon you in this divine writ that whenever you hear people deny the truth of God's messages and mock at them, you shall avoid their company until they begin to talk of other things - or else, verily, you will become like them. Behold, together with those who deny the truth God will gather in hell the hypocrites, 140 who but wait to see what betides you: thus, if triumph comes to you from God, they say: "Were we not on your side?" - whereas if those who deny the truth are in luck, they say [to them,] "Have we not earned your affection by defending you against those believers?'' But God will judge between you all on the Day of Resurrection; and never will God allow those who deny the truth to harm the believers. 141