Lo! the hypocrites seek to beguile Allah, but it is He Who beguileth them. When they stand up to worship they perform it languidly and to be seen of men, and are mindful of Allah but little; 142 Fluctuating in the middle; neither here (in faith) nor there (in disbelief); and for one whom Allah sends astray, you will not find a way. 143 O ye who believe! Take not for friends unbelievers rather than believers: Do ye wish to offer Allah an open proof against yourselves? 144 The hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of Hell, and you will find none to help them. 145 except those who re-pent and mend their ways and hold fast to Allah and make their faith exclusive to Allah. Those people shall be numbered with the believers and Allah will certainly bestow on the believers a great reward. 146 Why should God punish you if you acknowledge the truth and believe? God is responsive to gratitude and is cognisant. 147 ۞ Allah does not like speaking evil publicly unless one has been wronged. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. 148 Whether you act virtuously, in public or in private, or pardon (people's) faults, God is All-forgiving and All-powerful. 149 VERILY, those who deny God and His apostles by endeavouring to make a distinction between [belief in] God and [belief in] His apostles, and who say: "We believe in the one but we deny the other," and want to pursue a path in-between 150 it is they, they who are truly denying the truth: and for those who deny the truth We have readied shameful suffering. 151 And those who believe in Allah and His apostles and differentiate not between any of them, anon We shall give them their hire; and Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful. 152