Believers, if you fear God, He will give you guidance, will expiate your bad deeds and forgive you. God's favors are the greatest. 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 And when Our verses are recited to them they say, “Yes, we have heard – if we wanted we could also say something like this – these are nothing but stories of former people!” 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 But God would not choose to punish them while you are in their midst, nor afflict them when they are seeking forgiveness. 33 But why should Allah not punish them while they obstruct [people] from al-Masjid al- Haram and they were not [fit to be] its guardians? Its [true] guardians are not but the righteous, but most of them do not know. 34 Their Salat (prayer) at the House (of Allah, i.e. the Ka'bah at Makkah) was nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. Therefore taste the punishment because you used to disbelieve. 35 The disbelievers spend their wealth to turn men away from the way of God. They will continue to spend but it will become a source of regret for them and they will be defeated (because of their evil plans). The disbelievers will be gathered all togdher 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