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 Whenever Our revelations are recited to them, they say, "We have heard them. If we wished, we could produce the like. They are nothing but the fables of the ancients." 31 And also recall when they said: 'O Allah! If this indeed be the truth from You, then rain down stones upon us from heaven, or bring upon us a painful chastisement.' 32 But Allah was not to punish them whilst you were living in their midst. Nor would Allah punish them if they repeatedly ask forgiveness of Him. 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 prayers at the Sacred House are nothing but whistling and clapping. Therefore, taste the punishment for your disbelief. 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 so that God might separate the bad from the good, and join the bad with one another, and link them all together [within His condemnation,] and then place them in hell. They, they are the lost! 37