Believers! If you fear Allah He will grant you a criterion and will cleanse you of your sins and forgive you. Allah is Lord of abounding bounty. 29 Remember, when the infidels contrived to make you a prisoner or to murder or expel you, they plotted, but God also planned; and God's plan is the best. 30 Whenever Our revelations are recited to them, they say, "We have heard them. If we wished, we could produce the like. They are nothing but the fables of the ancients." 31 They also said, "God, if this really is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from heaven, or send us some other painful punishment." 32 God would not punish them while you were among them nor while they were asking for forgiveness. 33 But what have they [now] in their favour that God should not chastise them - seeing that they bar [the believers] from the Inviolable House of Worship, although they are not its [rightful] guardians? None but the God-conscious can be its guardians: but of this most of these [evildoers] are unaware; 34 Their prayer at the House (of Allah) is nothing but whistling and clapping of hands: (Its only answer can be), "Taste ye the penalty because ye blasphemed." 35 Surely those who disbelieve spend their wealth to hinder (people) from the way of Allah; so they shall spend it, then it shall be to them an intense regret, then they shall be overcome; and those who disbelieve shall be driven together to 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