۞ O YOU who have attained to faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding equity, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God's claim takes precedence over [the claims of] either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort [the truth,] behold, God is indeed aware of all that you do! 135 O believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has sent down on His Messenger and the Book which He sent down before. Whoso disbelieves in God and His angels and His Books, and His Messengers, and the Last Day, has surely gone astray into far error. 136 Indeed those who believe, then disbelieve and then again believe, then again disbelieve, and go further in their disbelief – Allah will never forgive them, nor ever guide them to the path. 137 Give tidings of painful chastisement to the hypocrites. 138 Those who take infidels for friends, instead of the believers; seek they honour with them? verily then honour is Allah's altogether. 139 And it hath been revealed to you in the Book that when ye hear Allah's revelations being disbelieved in and mocked at, sit not down with them until they plunge in a discourse other than that; for, then, ye would surely become like unto them. Verily Allah is about to gather hypocrites and infidels in Hell together. 140 The hypocrites wait to see what happens to you and, if God grants you a victory, they say, "Were we not on your side?" And if those who deny the truth have a share of it [victory] they say to them, "Did we not help you win, and protect you from the believers?" God will judge between you [all] on Resurrection Day. And never will God allow those who deny the truth to harm the believers. 141