۞ God is pleased with the believers for their pledging obedience to you under the tree. He knew whatever was in their hearts, thus, He granted them confidence and rewarded them with an immediate victory 18 and many spoils to take; and God is ever All-mighty, All-wise. 19 Allah promiseth you much booty that ye will capture, and hath given you this in advance, and hath withheld men's hands from you, that it may be a token for the believers, and that He may guide you on a right path. 20 And [He promises] other [victories] that you were [so far] unable to [realize] which Allah has already encompassed. And ever is Allah, over all things, competent. 21 And if those [Makkans] who disbelieve had fought you, they would have turned their backs [in flight]. Then they would not find a protector or a helper. 22 This is the law of God, effective as before: You will not find any change in the law of God. 23 And He it is who, in the valley of Mecca, stayed their hands from you, and your hands from them, after He had enabled you to vanquish them; and God saw indeed what you were doing. 24 These it was who disbelieved and debarred you from the Inviolable Place of Worship, and debarred the offering from reaching its goal. And if it had not been for believing men and believing women, whom ye know not - lest ye should tread them under foot and thus incur guilt for them unknowingly; that Allah might bring into His mercy whom He will - If (the believers and the disbelievers) had been clearly separated We verily had punished those of them who disbelieved with painful punishment. 25 While those who deny the truth made it a prestige issue [in their hearts], the bigotry of the days of ignorance, God sent His tranquillity down on to His Messenger and believers and firmly established in them the principle of righteousness, for they were indeed better entitled to it and more worthy of it. God has full knowledge of all things. 26