O People who Believe! If you fear Allah, He will bestow upon you (the criterion) that with which you will separate the truth from falsehood, and He will unburden your misdeeds and forgive you; and Allah is the Extremely Munificent. 29 Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed -- but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 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 said, "God, if this really is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from heaven, or send us some other painful punishment." 32 But Allah would not punish them while thou wast with them, nor will He punish them while they seek forgiveness. 33 And why should not Allah punish them while they stop (men) from Al-Masjid-al-Haram, and they are not its guardians? None can be its guardian except Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2), but most of them know not. 34 And their prayer before the House is nothing but whistling and clapping of hands; taste then the chastisement, for you disbelieved. 35 Surely those who deny the truth spend their wealth to hinder people from the way of Allah, and will continue to so spend until their efforts become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be vanquished, and then these deniers of the truth will be driven to Hell, 36 so that God might separate the bad from the good, and join the bad with one another, and link them all together [within His condemnation,] and then place them in hell. They, they are the lost! 37