۞ ART THOU NOT aware of how those who would always dissemble [their real feelings] speak to their truth-denying brethren from among the followers of earlier revelation: "If you are driven away, we shall most certainly go forth with you, and shall never pay heed to anyone against you; and if war is waged against you, we shall most certainly come to your succour." But God bears witness that they are most flagrantly lying: 11 If they are driven out, they will not go with them, nor, if they are attacked, will they help them. Indeed, if they go to their help, they will turn their backs in flight, and then they will not be helped. 12 Their fear of you in their hearts is greater than their fear of Allah; that is because they are a people who do not understand. 13 They will never fight against you as a body (in an open battlefield); and if they fight against you they will fight only in fortified townships or from behind walls. Intense is their hostility to one another. You reckon them united while their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people devoid of reason. 14 On the likeness of those (who suffered) a short time before them, they taste the ill-effects of their own conduct, and theirs is painful punishment. 15 (Their allies deceived them), like the Evil One, when he says to man, "Deny Allah": but when (man) denies Allah, (the Evil One) says, "I am free of thee: I do fear Allah, the Lord of the Worlds!" 16 In the end both will be in the Fire, and will abide in it. That is the recompense of the wrong-doers. 17