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62
THE QUR'ÂN.
III, 121-131.
sent down from on high ? Yea, if ye are patient and fear God, and they come upon you on a sudden, now, your Lord will assist you with five thousand of His angels, (angels) of mark. God only made this as glad tidings for you to comfort your hearts withal, for victory is but from God, the mighty, the wise ; -to cut off the flank of those who misbelieve, or make them downcast, that they may retire disappointed.
Thou hast nothing to do with the affair at all, whether He turn towards them again or punish them ; for, verily, they are unjust.
God's is what is in the heavens and in the earth. He forgives whom He pleases, and punishes whom He pleases; for God is forgiving and merciful.
[125] O ye who believe! devour not usury doubly doubled, but fear God, perchance ye may be prosperous; fear the fire which is prepared for the unbelievers, and obey God and His Apostle, perchance ye may get mercy. And vie with one another for pardon from your Lord, and for Paradise, the breadth of which is as the heaven and the earth, prepared for those who fear;--for those who expend in alms, in prosperity and adversity, for those who repress their rage, and those who pardon men; God loves the kind. Those who when they do a crime, or wrong themselves, remember God, and ask forgiveness for their sins, -and who forgives sins save God?-and do not persevere in what they did, the while they know ;-130}these have their reward : -pardon from their Lord, and gardens beneath which rivers flow, dwelling therein for aye; for pleasant is the hire of those who act like this.
Incidents have passed before your time, go on
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