NOW THOSE who have attained to faith say: "Would that a revelation [allowing us to fight] was bestowed from on high!" But now that a revelation clear in and by itself, mentioning war, has been bestowed from on high, thou canst see those in whose hearts is disease looking at thee, [O Muhammad,] with the look of one who is about to faint for fear of death! And yet, far better for them would be 20 To obey and speak good; so when the manifest command came – it would have been better for them if they had remained faithful to Allah. 21 So would you perhaps, if you turned away, cause corruption on earth and sever your [ties of] relationship? 22 It is such as these whom God rejects, and whom He makes deaf [to the voice of truth,] and whose eyes He blinds [to its sight]! 23 Will they not, then, ponder over this Qur'an? - or are there locks upon their hearts? 24 Those who turn their backs after the way of guidance has been opened to them, have been surely tempted by Satan and beguiled by illusory hopes. 25 This was so because they said to those who disdain what God has revealed: "We shall obey you in some things." But God knows their secret intentions well. 26 How then shall it be when the angels shall take them away at death smiting their faces and their backs! 27 That is because they have followed what angers God, and have been averse to His good pleasure, so He has made their works to fail. 28