The pagans do not have any right to establish (and patronize) the mosque of God while they testify against their souls to its disbelief. Their deeds are devoid of all virtue and they will live forever in hell fire. 17 He only shall tend Allah's sanctuaries who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due and feareth none save Allah. For such (only) is it possible that they can be of the rightly guided. 18 ۞ Do you, perchance, regard the [mere] giving of water to pilgrims and the tending of the Inviolable House of Worship as being equal to [the works of] one who believes in God and the Last Day and strives hard in God's cause? These [things] are not equal in the sight of God. And God does not grace with His guidance people who [deliberately] do wrong. 19 Those who believe, and suffer exile and strive with might and main, in Allah's cause, with their goods and their persons, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah: they are the people who will achieve (salvation). 20 Their Lord will give the glad news of His granting mercy to them, His pleasure, and His admitting them to a Paradise full of everlasting bounties wherein they will live forever. 21 Abiding therein for ever; surely Allah has a Mighty reward with Him. 22 Believers, do not accept your fathers and brothers as your guardians if they prefer disbelief to faith, lest you be unjust. 23 Say: "If your fathers and your sons and your brothers and your spouses and your clan, and the worldly goods which you have acquired, and the commerce whereof you fear a decline, and the dwellings in which you take pleasure - [if all these] are dearer to you than God and His Apostle and the struggle in His cause, then wait until God makes manifest His will; and [know that] God does not grace iniquitous folk with His guidance." 24