۞ O YOU who have attained to faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding equity, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God's claim takes precedence over [the claims of] either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort [the truth,] behold, God is indeed aware of all that you do! 135 O you who believe! believe in Allah and His Apostle and the Book which He has revealed to His Apostle and the Book which He revealed before; and whoever disbelieves in Allah and His angels and His apostles and the last day, he indeed strays off into a remote error. 136 As for those who come to believe, and then deny the truth, and again come to believe, and again deny the truth, and thereafter grow stubborn in their denial of the truth -- God will never forgive them, nor will He guide them. 137 Give glad tidings to the hypocrites that for them there is a painful punishment. 138 Those who take unbelievers for their friends instead of believers -- do they seek glory in them? But glory altogether belongs to God. 139 And indeed, He has enjoined upon you in this divine writ that whenever you hear people deny the truth of God's messages and mock at them, you shall avoid their company until they begin to talk of other things - or else, verily, you will become like them. Behold, together with those who deny the truth God will gather in hell the hypocrites, 140 Those who wait for (some misfortune to befall) you then If you have a victory from Allah they say: Were we not with you? And if there is a chance for the unbelievers, they say: Did we not acquire the mastery over you and defend you from the believers? So Allah shall Judge between you on the day of resurrection, and Allah will by no means give the unbelievers a way against the believers. 141