Prophet, tell those you have taken captive: "If God knows of any good in your hearts, He will give you something better than what has been taken from you, and He will forgive you: God is Forgiving and Merciful." 70 If they try to deceive you, remember they have deceived God before. So He gave you mastery over them, for God is all-knowing and all-wise. 71 BEHOLD, as for those who have attained to faith, and who have forsaken the domain of evil and are striving hard, with their possessions and their lives, in God's cause, as well as those who shelter and succour [them] - these are [truly] the friends and protectors of one another. But as for those who have come to believe without having migrated [to your country] - you are in no wise responsible for their protection until such a time as they migrate [to you]. Yet, if they ask you for succour against religious persecution, it is your duty to give [them] this succour - except against a people between whom and yourselves there is a covenant: for God sees all that you do. 72 The unbelievers, they are guides of one another. Unless you do this, there will be persecution in the land and great corruption. 73 Those who believe and have migrated and strove in the way of Allah, and those who gave them refuge and help - it is they who are the true believers. Theirs shall be forgiveness and honourable sustenance. 74 And those who afterwards believed and left their homes and strove along with you, they are of you; and those who are akin are nearer one to another in the ordinance of Allah. Lo! Allah is Knower of all things. 75