۞ God is pleased with the believers for their pledging obedience to you under the tree. He knew whatever was in their hearts, thus, He granted them confidence and rewarded them with an immediate victory 18 and [of] many war-gains which they would achieve: for God is indeed almighty, wise. 19 [O you who believe!] God has promised you many war-gains which you shall yet achieve; and He has vouchsafed you these [worldly gains] well in advance, and has stayed from you the hands of [hostile] people, so that this [your inner strength] may become a symbol to the believers [who will come after you,] and that He may guide you all on a straight way. 20 And there are yet other [gains] which are still beyond your grasp, [but] which God has already encompassed [for you]: for God has power over all things. 21 Had the unbelievers fought against you at that time, they would have turned their backs (in flight), and would have found none to protect or help them. 22 This is the tradition of God which existed before, and you will never find any change in His tradition. 23 It is He who withheld their hands from you, and your hands from them in the valley of Makkah, after giving you victory over them. God sees what you do. 24 They are those who disbelieved and barred you from the Holy Mosque and the offering detained so as not to reach its place of sacrifice. If it had not been for certain believing men and certain believing women whom you did not know, you might have trampled upon them, and so sin reached you because of (killing) them while you did not know. In order that Allah admits into His Mercy whom He will, had they (the believers) been easy to distinguish, We would have punished the unbelievers among them with a painful punishment. 25 When the unbelievers fostered a sense of honour in their hearts, a sense of pagan honour, God sent down a sense of tranquility on His Apostle and the believers, and obliged them to an act of self-restraint, for they were deserving and worthy of it. God is cognisant of everything. 26