The hypocrites are afraid lest a Sura should be sent down concerning them, to tell them plainly what is in their hearts. Say: Scoff ye; but God will bring to light that which ye are afraid of.

And if thou question them, they will surely say, “We were only discoursing and jesting.” Say: What! do ye scoff at God, and His signs, and His Apostle?

Make no excuse: from faith ye have passed to infidelity! If we forgive some of you, we will punish others: for that they have been evil doers.

Hypocritical men and women imitate one another.²⁷

God promiseth the hypocritical men and women, and the unbelievers, the fire of Hell—therein shall they abide—this their sufficing portion! And God hath cursed them, and a lasting torment shall be theirs.

Ye act like those who flourished before you. Mightier were they than you in prowess, and more abundant in wealth and children, and they enjoyed their portion: so ye also enjoy your portion, as they who were before you enjoyed theirs; and ye hold discourses like their discourses. These! vain their works both for this world and for that which is to come! These! they are the lost ones.

Hath not the history reached them of those who were before them?—of the people of Noah,²⁹

The faithful of both sexes are mutual friends: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil; they observe prayer, and pay the legal impost, and they obey God and His Apostle. On these will God have mercy: verily, God is Mighty, Wise.

To the faithful, both men and women, God promiseth gardens ’neath which the rivers flow, in which they shall abide, and goodly mansions in the gardens of Eden. But best of all will be God’s good pleasure in them. This will be the great bliss.

O Prophet! contend against the infidels and the hypocrites, and be rigorous with them: Hell shall be their dwelling place! Wretched the journey thither!

They swear by God that they said no such thing: yet spake they the word of infidelity, and from Muslims became unbelievers! They planned what they could not effect;³⁰ and only disapproved of it because God and His Apostle had enriched them by His bounty! If they repent it will be better for them; but if they fall back into their sin, with a grievous chastisement will God chastise them in this world and the next, and on earth they shall have neither friend nor protector!

Some there are of them who made this agreement with God—“If truly He give us of His bounties, we will surely give alms and surely be of the righteous.”

Yet when he had vouchsafed them of His bounty, they became covetous thereof, and turned their backs, and withdrew afar off:

So He caused hypocrisy to take its turn in their hearts, until the day on which they shall meet Him—for that they failed their promise to God, and that they were liars!

Know they not that God knoweth their secrets and their private talk, and that God knoweth the secret things?