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 Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed -- but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 30 And when Our verses are recited to them, they say, "We have heard. If we willed, we could say [something] like this. This is not but legends of the former peoples." 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 But Allah was not to chastise them while you are in their midst; nor was Allah going to chastise them while they sought His forgiveness. 33 Yet why should God not punish them when they debar people from the Sacred Mosque, although they are not its guardians? Its rightful guardians are those who fear God, though most of them do not realize it. 34 Their Prayer at the House is nothing but whistling and handclapping. Taste, then, this chastisement for your denying the truth. 35 Verily, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to hinder (men) from the Path of Allah, and so will they continue to spend it; but in the end it will become an anguish for them. Then they will be overcomed. And those who disbelieve will be gathered unto Hell. 36 That Allah may separate the wicked from the good, The wicked will He place piece upon piece, and heap them all together, and consign them unto hell. Such verily are the losers. 37