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 And [remember, O Muhammad], when those who disbelieved plotted against you to restrain you or kill you or evict you [from Makkah]. But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners. 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 [remember] when they said, "O Allah, if this should be the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the sky or bring us a painful punishment." 32 But God did not choose thus to chastise them while thou [O Prophet] wert still among them, nor would God chastise them when they [might yet] ask for forgiveness. 33 But what plea have they that Allah should not punish them, when they keep out (men) from the sacred Mosque - and they are not its guardians? No men can be its guardians except the righteous; but most of them do not understand. 34 Their prayers at the Sacred House are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. "So taste the punishment because of your denial." 35 Those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their wealth in debarring others from the path of God. They will continue to spend it in this way till, in the end, this spending will become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be overcome. And those who denied the truth will be gathered together in Hell. 36 so that God might separate the bad from the good, and join the bad with one another, and link them all together [within His condemnation,] and then place them in hell. They, they are the lost! 37