Believers, fear God and stand with the truthful. 119 It did not befit the people of Medinah and the people of the villages around them, to stay behind the Noble Messenger of Allah, nor to consider their own lives dearer than his life; that is because the thirst or the pain or the hunger that afflicts them in Allah's cause, and the step they tread on a place that angers the disbelievers, and whatever harm they cause the enemy – a good deed is recorded for them in lieu of all of these; indeed Allah does not waste the wages of the virtuous. 120 Also, they would not have spent anything, great or small, for the cause of God or travel through a valley without God decreeing a reward for them far better than whatever they had done. 121 ۞ It was not necessary for the believers to go forth all together (to receive religious instruction), but why did not a party of them go forth that they may grow in religious understanding, and that they may warn their people when they return to them, so that they may avoid (erroneous attitudes)? 122