۞ 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 Believers, believe in God and His Messenger and in the Scripture He sent down to His Messenger, as well as what He sent down before. He who denies God, His angels, His Scriptures, His messengers and the Last Day has surely gone far astray. 136 Those who believe, and then disbelieve, and then believe, and then disbelieve, and increase in disbelief Allah is not to forgive them nor guide them on a way. 137 Give tidings of painful chastisement to the hypocrites. 138 Those who chose disbelievers for their friends instead of believers! Do they look for power at their hands? Lo! all power appertaineth to Allah. 139 And indeed Allah has sent down to you in the Book that whenever you hear the signs of Allah being rejected or being made fun of, do not sit with those people, until they engage in some other conversation; or else you too are like them; undoubtedly Allah will gather the hypocrites and the disbelievers, all together, into hell. 140 These hypocrites watch you closely: if victory is granted to you by Allah, they will say: 'Were we not with you?' And were the unbelievers to gain the upper hand, they will say: 'Did we not have mastery over you, and yet we protected you from the believers?' It is Allah Who will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection, and He will not allow the unbelievers, in any way, to gain advantage over the believers. 141