O you who have attained to faith! If you remain conscious of God He will endow you with a standard by which to discern the true from the false, and will efface your bad deeds, and will forgive you your sins; for God is limitless in His great bounty. 29 Remember, when the infidels contrived to make you a prisoner or to murder or expel you, they plotted, but God also planned; and God's plan is the best. 30 And when Our communications are recited to them, they say: We have heard indeed; if we pleased we could say the like of it; this is nothing but the stories of the ancients. 31 And when they said: O Allah! if this is the truth from Thee, then rain upon us stones from heaven or inflict on us a painful punishment. 32 But Allah was not to chastise them while you are in their midst; nor was Allah going to chastise them while they sought His forgiveness. 33 But what have they [now] in their favour that God should not chastise them - seeing that they bar [the believers] from the Inviolable House of Worship, although they are not its [rightful] guardians? None but the God-conscious can be its guardians: but of this most of these [evildoers] are unaware; 34 And naught was their prayer at the House but whistling and hand-clapping. Taste then the torment for ye were to disbelieve. 35 Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah. So they will spend it; then it will be for them a [source of] regret; then they will be overcome. And those who have disbelieved - unto Hell they will be gathered. 36 That Allah may separate the wicked from the good, The wicked will He place piece upon piece, and heap them all together, and consign them unto hell. Such verily are the losers. 37