O believers, if you follow the path shown by God, He will give you a standard (of right and wrong), and overlook your sins, and forgive you. God is abounding in benevolence. 29 AND [remember, O Prophet,] how those who were bent on denying the truth were scheming against thee, in order to restrain thee [from preaching,] or to slay thee, or to drive thee away; thus have they [always] schemed, but God brought their scheming to nought - for God is above all schemers. 30 Whenever Our verses are recited to them, they say: 'We have heard them, if we wished, we could speak its like. They are but tales of the ancients' 31 And when they said, 'O God, if this be indeed the truth from Thee, then rain down upon us stones out of heaven, or bring us a painful chastisement.' 32 But Allah was not to chastise them while you are in their midst; nor was Allah going to chastise them while they sought His forgiveness. 33 But what have they [now] in their favour that God should not chastise them - seeing that they bar [the believers] from the Inviolable House of Worship, although they are not its [rightful] guardians? None but the God-conscious can be its guardians: but of this most of these [evildoers] are unaware; 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 Verily those who disbelieve are expending their riches in order to hinder People from the way of Allah; so they will go on expending them; thereafter they shall become an anguish unto them; then they shall be overcome. And those who disbelieve shall be gathered for 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