O you who have attained to faith! If you remain conscious of God He will endow you with a standard by which to discern the true from the false, and will efface your bad deeds, and will forgive you your sins; for God is limitless in His great bounty. 29 And when the unbelievers plotted against you (Prophet Muhammad). They sought to either take you captive or have you killed, or expelled. They plotted but Allah (in reply) also plotted. Allah is the Best in plotting. 30 And when Our revelations are recited unto them they say: We have heard. If we wish we can speak the like of this. Lo! this is naught but fables of the men of old. 31 When they say: 'O Allah, if this is indeed the truth from You, rain down upon us stones from heaven or bring us a painful punishment.' 32 But God would not punish them while you [Prophet] were in their midst, nor would He punish them so long as they sought 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 at the House is nothing but a whistling and a clapping of hands -- therefore taste you now the chastisement for your unbelief! 35 Behold, those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their riches in order to turn others away from the path of God; and they will go on spending them until they become [a source of] intense regret for them; and then they will be overcome! And those who [until their death] have denied the truth shall be gathered unto 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