Believers, if you fear Allah, He will give you a criteria and cleanse you of your sins and forgive you. Allah is the Owner of great 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. If we willed, we could say [something] like this. This is not but legends of the former peoples." 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 And Allah is not one to chastise them whilst thou art in their midst, nor was Allah going to chastise them while they were asking 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. Therefore, taste the punishment for your disbelief. 35 Behold, those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their riches in order to turn others away from the path of God; and they will go on spending them until they become [a source of] intense regret for them; and then they will be overcome! And those who [until their death] have denied the truth shall be gathered unto hell, 36 that God may distinguish the corrupt from the good, and place the corrupt one upon another, and so heap them up all together, and put them in Gehenna; those are the losers. 37