۞ ART THOU NOT aware of how those who would always dissemble [their real feelings] speak to their truth-denying brethren from among the followers of earlier revelation: "If you are driven away, we shall most certainly go forth with you, and shall never pay heed to anyone against you; and if war is waged against you, we shall most certainly come to your succour." But God bears witness that they are most flagrantly lying: 11 Surely if they are driven forth, they shall not go forth with them, and surely if they are attacked, they shall succour them not, and even if they succoured them they would turn their backs; and then they shall not be succoured. 12 You [believers] are more fearful within their breasts than Allah. That is because they are a people who do not understand. 13 They will never fight against you as a body (in an open battlefield); and if they fight against you they will fight only in fortified townships or from behind walls. Intense is their hostility to one another. You reckon them united while their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people devoid of reason. 14 On the likeness of those (who suffered) a short time before them, they taste the ill-effects of their own conduct, and theirs is painful punishment. 15 Like Satan, when he said to man, 'Disbelieve'; then, when he disbelieved, he said, 'Surely I am quit of you. Surely I fear God, the Lord of all Being.' 16 Both of them will end up in Hell, where they will abide for ever. This is the punishment for the wicked. 17