۞ O YOU who have attained to faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding equity, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God's claim takes precedence over [the claims of] either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort [the truth,] behold, God is indeed aware of all that you do! 135 O you who have attained to faith! Hold fast unto your belief in God and His Apostle, and in the divine writ which He has bestowed from on high upon His Apostle, step by step, as well as in the revelation which He sent down aforetime: for he who denies God, and His angels, and His revelations, and His apostles, and the Last Day, has indeed gone far astray. 136 Indeed, those who have believed then disbelieved, then believed, then disbelieved, and then increased in disbelief - never will Allah forgive them, nor will He guide them to a way. 137 Give to the hypocrites the tidings that there is for them a painful torment. 138 Do those who establish friendship with the disbelievers instead of the believers seek honor? Let them know that all honor belongs to God. 139 You have been commanded in the Book that whensoever you hear God's messages denied or derided, do not sit in that company until they begin talking of other things, or you will be no different from them. Indeed God will put the hypocrites and infidels together in Hell. 140 The hypocrites wait to see what happens to you and, if God grants you a victory, they say, "Were we not on your side?" And if those who deny the truth have a share of it [victory] they say to them, "Did we not help you win, and protect you from the believers?" God will judge between you [all] on Resurrection Day. And never will God allow those who deny the truth to harm the believers. 141