O you who have believed, if you fear Allah, He will grant you a criterion and will remove from you your misdeeds and forgive you. And Allah is the possessor of great bounty. 29 Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed -- but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 30 And when Our revelations are rehearsed unto them, they say: we have heard; we could if we willed, surely say something the like thereof; naught is this but fables of the ancients. 31 They also say, "Lord, if this (Quran) is the Truth from you, shower down stones on us from the sky instead of rain or send us a painful punishment". 32 But Allah was not going to chastise them while you were among them, nor is Allah going to chastise them while yet they ask for 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 worship in the House of God has been no more than whistling and clapping. So they have to taste the punishment for disbelief. 35 Those who disbelieve spend their possessions on turning men away from God. They will go on spending and rue it in the end, and will be subdued. But those who remain disbelievers shall be gathered into Hell 36 [This is] so that Allah may distinguish the wicked from the good and place the wicked some of them upon others and heap them all together and put them into Hell. It is those who are the losers. 37