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 Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed -- but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 30 And when Our verses are recited to them, they say: 'We have heard. We could, if we willed, compose the like of it. They, are nothing but fables of the ancient times.' 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 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 prayers at the Sacred House are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. "So taste the punishment because of your denial." 35 The Unbelievers spend their wealth to hinder (man) from the path of Allah, and so will they continue to spend; but in the end they will have (only) regrets and sighs; at length they will be overcome: and the Unbelievers will be gathered together to Hell;- 36 so that Allah may separate the bad from the good, and join together all those who are bad into a pile one upon another, and cast them into Hell. They, it is they who are the losers. 37