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 AND [remember, O Prophet,] how those who were bent on denying the truth were scheming against thee, in order to restrain thee [from preaching,] or to slay thee, or to drive thee away; thus have they [always] schemed, but God brought their scheming to nought - for God is above all schemers. 30 And when Our revelations are rehearsed unto them, they say: we have heard; we could if we willed, surely say something the like thereof; naught is this but fables of the ancients. 31 And when they said, 'O God, if this be indeed the truth from Thee, then rain down upon us stones out of heaven, or bring us a painful chastisement.' 32 But God did not choose thus to chastise them while thou [O Prophet] wert still among them, nor would God chastise them when they [might yet] ask for forgiveness. 33 What (plea) have they that Allah should not punish them, when they debar (His servants) from the Inviolable Place of Worship, though they are not its fitting guardians. Its fitting guardians are those only who keep their duty to Allah. But most of them know not. 34 Their prayer at the House (of Allah) is nothing but whistling and clapping of hands: (Its only answer can be), "Taste ye the penalty because ye blasphemed." 35 Those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their wealth in debarring others from the path of God. They will continue to spend it in this way till, in the end, this spending will become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be overcome. And those who denied the truth will be gathered together in Hell. 36 In order that Allah may separate the filthy from the pure, and placing the filthy atop one another, make a heap and throw them into hell; it is they who are the losers. 37