Believers! What is amiss with you that when it is said to you: "March forth in the cause of Allah," you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the worldly life to the Hereafter? Know well that all the enjoyment of this world, in comparison with the Hereafter, is trivial. 38 If you go not forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement, and instead of you He will substitute another people; and you will not hurt Him anything, for God is powerful over everything. 39 If you do not help him, yet God has helped him already, when the unbelievers drove him forth the second of two, when the two were in the Cave, when he said to his companion, 'Sorrow not; surely God is with us.' Then God sent down on him His Shechina, and confirmed him with legions you did not see; and He made the word of the unbelievers the lowest; and God's word is the uppermost; God is All-mighty, All-wise. 40 Go forth to war, whether it be easy or difficult [for you,] and strive hard in God's cause with your possessions and your lives: this is for your own good - if you but knew it! 41 Had there been [a prospect of] immediate gain, and an easy journey, they would certainly have followed thee, [O Prophet:] but the distance was too great for them. And yet, [after your return, O believers,] they will swear by God, "Had we been able to do so, we would certainly have set out with you!" - [and by thus falsely swearing] they will be destroying their own selves: for God knows indeed that they are lying! 42