Believers! If you fear Allah He will grant you a criterion and will cleanse you of your sins and forgive you. Allah is Lord of abounding bounty. 29 And when the unbelievers were devising against thee, to confine thee, or slay thee, or to expel thee, and were devising, and God was devising; and God is the best of devisers. 30 And when Our revelations are recited unto them they say: We have heard. If we wish we can speak the like of this. Lo! this is naught but fables of the men of old. 31 And recall what time they said: O God! if this indeed be the truth from before Thee, then rain down stones upon us from heaven or bring on us a torment afflictive. 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 what prevents Allah from chastising them now when they are hindering people from the Holy Mosque, even though they are not even its true guardians. For its true guardians are none but the God-fearing, though most of them do not know that. 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 Surely those who deny the truth spend their wealth to hinder people from the way of Allah, and will continue to so spend until their efforts become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be vanquished, and then these deniers of the truth will be driven to Hell, 36 In order that Allah may distinguish the wicked (disbelievers, polytheists and doers of evil deeds) from the good (believers of Islamic Monotheism and doers of righteous deeds), and put the wicked (disbelievers, polytheists and doers of evil deeds) one on another, heap them together and cast them into Hell. Those! it is they who are the losers. 37