O believers, if you follow the path shown by God, He will give you a standard (of right and wrong), and overlook your sins, and forgive you. God is abounding in benevolence. 29 The unbelievers planned to imprison, murder or expel you (Muhammad) from your city. They make evil plans but God too plans and God's plans are the best. 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 They also say, "Lord, if this (Quran) is the Truth from you, shower down stones on us from the sky instead of rain or send us a painful punishment". 32 And it is not for Allah to punish them while you O dear Prophet (Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him) are amongst them; and Allah will not punish them as long as they are seeking forgiveness. (Prophet Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him – is a mercy unto mankind.) 33 And why should Allah not punish them, when they have barred others from the Sacred Mosque, although they were not its guardians? Its only guardians are the cautious, though most of them do not know. 34 Their Prayer at the House is nothing but whistling and handclapping. Taste, then, this chastisement for your denying the truth. 35 Those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their wealth in debarring others from the path of God. They will continue to spend it in this way till, in the end, this spending will become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be overcome. And those who denied the truth will be gathered together in Hell. 36 that God may distinguish the corrupt from the good, and place the corrupt one upon another, and so heap them up all together, and put them in Gehenna; those are the losers. 37