۞ God is pleased with the believers for their pledging obedience to you under the tree. He knew whatever was in their hearts, thus, He granted them confidence and rewarded them with an immediate victory 18 and with many future gains -- God is mighty and wise. 19 [O you who believe!] God has promised you many war-gains which you shall yet achieve; and He has vouchsafed you these [worldly gains] well in advance, and has stayed from you the hands of [hostile] people, so that this [your inner strength] may become a symbol to the believers [who will come after you,] and that He may guide you all on a straight way. 20 And there are yet other [gains] which are still beyond your grasp, [but] which God has already encompassed [for you]: for God has the power to will anything. 21 And if those who disbelieve fight with you, they would certainly turn (their) backs, then they would not find any protector or a helper. 22 Such is the way of Allah in days gone by, and you shall find no change in the ways of Allah. 23 And He it is who, in the valley of Mecca, stayed their hands from you, and your hands from them, after He had enabled you to vanquish them; and God saw indeed what you were doing. 24 These it was who disbelieved and debarred you from the Inviolable Place of Worship, and debarred the offering from reaching its goal. And if it had not been for believing men and believing women, whom ye know not - lest ye should tread them under foot and thus incur guilt for them unknowingly; that Allah might bring into His mercy whom He will - If (the believers and the disbelievers) had been clearly separated We verily had punished those of them who disbelieved with painful punishment. 25 (This is why) when the unbelievers set in their hearts a fierce bigotry -- the bigotry of ignorance -- Allah bestowed inner peace upon His Messenger and upon the believers and made the word of piety binding on them. They were more deserving and worthier thereof. Allah has knowledge of everything. 26