Believers! If you fear Allah He will grant you a criterion and will cleanse you of your sins and forgive you. Allah is Lord of abounding bounty. 29 And recall how those who disbelieved schemed against you to take you captive, or kill you, or drive you away. They schemed and Allah did also scheme. Allah is the best of those who scheme. 30 And when Our verses are recited to them, they say, "We have heard. If we willed, we could say [something] like this. This is not but legends of the former peoples." 31 They also said, "God, if this really is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from heaven, or send us some other painful punishment." 32 And it is not for Allah to punish them while you O dear Prophet (Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him) are amongst them; and Allah will not punish them as long as they are seeking forgiveness. (Prophet Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him – is a mercy unto mankind.) 33 But what prevents Allah from chastising them now when they are hindering people from the Holy Mosque, even though they are not even its true guardians. For its true guardians are none but the God-fearing, though most of them do not know that. 34 and their prayers before the Temple are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. Taste then, [O unbelievers,] this chastisement as an outcome of your persistent denial of the truth! 35 The unbelievers expend their wealth to bar from God's way, and still they will expend it, till it is an anguish for them, then be overthrown, and the unbelievers will be mustered into Gehenna, 36 That Allah might separate the impure from the good, and put the impure, some of it upon the other, and pile it up together, then cast it into hell; these it is that are the losers. 37