۞ 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 believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has revealed to His Apostle, and the Books revealed before. But he who believes not in God and His angels and the Books and the prophets and the Last Day, has wandered far away. 136 Surely (as for) those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah will not forgive them nor guide them in the (right) path. 137 Tell the hypocrites that for them there will be a painful torment. 138 Those who leave the Muslims to befriend the disbelievers; do they seek honour from them? Then (know that) undoubtedly all honour is for Allah. 139 And indeed He has revealed to you in the Book that when you hear Allah's communications disbelieved in and mocked at do not sit with them until they enter into some other discourse; surely then you would be like them; surely Allah will gather together the hypocrites and the unbelievers all in hell. 140 The hypocrites wait to see what happens to you and, if God grants you a victory, they say, "Were we not on your side?" And if those who deny the truth have a share of it [victory] they say to them, "Did we not help you win, and protect you from the believers?" God will judge between you [all] on Resurrection Day. And never will God allow those who deny the truth to harm the believers. 141