۞ 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 [for] if those [to whom they have pledged themselves] are indeed driven away, they will not go forth with them; and if war is waged against them, they will not come to their succour; and even if they [try to] succour them, they will most certainly turn their backs [in flight,] and in the end will [themselves] find no succour. 12 Surely they have greater fear of you in their hearts than of God, because they 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 They are like those who, a short time before, suffered the consequences of their deeds. They, too, will suffer a painful torment. 15 They are like Satan, who says to man, "Deny the truth!" but when man denied the truth, said, "I disown you; I fear God, the Lord of the Universe." 16 Their end shall be that they live for ever in the Fire. That is the recompense of the harmdoers. 17