Believers, if you fear God, He will grant you the ability to discriminate between right and wrong, and will forgive you your sins: for God is limitless in His great bounty. 29 And when the unbelievers were devising against thee, to confine thee, or slay thee, or to expel thee, and were devising, and God was devising; and God is the best of devisers. 30 And when Our communications are recited to them, they say: We have heard indeed; if we pleased we could say the like of it; this is nothing but the stories 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 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 Their Salat (prayer) at the House (of Allah, i.e. the Ka'bah at Makkah) was nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. Therefore taste the punishment because you used to disbelieve. 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 In order that Allah may distinguish the vile from the good; and the vile He shall place one upon another, and shall pile it all together, and shall place it into Hell. Those! It is they who are the losers. 37