۞ 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 If they are driven out, they will not go with them, nor, if they are attacked, will they help them. Indeed, if they go to their help, they will turn their backs in flight, and then they will not be helped. 12 Surely they have greater dread for you in their hearts than for Allah. That is because they are a people who are devoid of understanding. 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 Like those who went just before them, they have tasted the evil consequences of their doings. And they shall have a painful punishment. 15 They are like Satan, who says to man, "Deny the truth!" but when man denied the truth, said, "I disown you; I fear God, the Lord of the Universe." 16 Thus, in the end, both [the deniers of the truth and the hypocrites] will find themselves in the fire, therein to abide: for such is the recompense of evildoers. 17