66لا تَعتَذِروا قَد كَفَرتُم بَعدَ إيمانِكُم ۚ إِن نَعفُ عَن طائِفَةٍ مِنكُم نُعَذِّب طائِفَةً بِأَنَّهُم كانوا مُجرِمينَMuhammad AsadDo not offer [empty] excuses! You have indeed denied the truth after [having professed] your belief [in it]?"1 Though We may efface the sin of some of you, We shall chastise others - seeing that they were lost in sin.2See note 89 above.I.e., consciously persevered in hypocrisy (Zamakhshari). The above Qur'anic sentence expresses the doctrine that in His final judgment God will take into account all that is in a sinner's heart, and will not indiscriminately condemn everyone who has been sinning out of weakness or out of an inner inability to resolve his doubts and not out of a conscious inclination to evil (cf. 4:98 - "excepted shall be the [truly] helpless - be they men or women or children - who cannot bring forth any strength and have not been shown [or "cannot find"] the right way").