3:142 - Gods knowledge
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Peace,
Free Minds 3140
If you are wounded, then know that the other group is also wounded. And such are the days, We alternate them between the people, so that God will know those who believe, and so He may make witnesses from among you; and God does not like the wicked.Free Minds 3141
And God will test those who believe and He will destroy the rejecters.Free Minds 3142
Or did you think that you would enter Paradise without God knowing those who would strive amongst you and knowing those who are patient?Do these verses imply that until god tests the believers, god doesn't know which ones are sincere?
Nadeem
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Peace Nadeem,
this has been discussed multiple times before on this forum. The apparent contradiction is because of the mistranslation of the word "ya3lam" in those verses to "know" instead of the other possible meaning "distinguish". In 3142, the latest free minds translation uses "distinguishing" for the first part of the verse although they leave the second occurrence in the same verse as "knowing" !! Thus all the verses you quoted along with the other similar verses should be translated using "distinguish"
3140 If you are wounded, then know that the other group is also wounded. And such are the days, We alternate them between the people, so that God will distinguish those who believe, and so He may make witnesses from among you; and God does not like the wicked.
3142 Or did you think that you would enter Paradise without God distinguishing those who would strive amongst you and distinguishing those who are patient?
Other translators, for example QXP and Khalifa have used distinguish too, in addition to some of the free minds translations of other similar verses also (3142, 916, 293, 5725).
You can use the search function for the past discussions on this issue in the forum, especially by sis savage_carrot, who first drew my attention to this.
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Peace bro Nadeem,
You are most welcome brother. Can you as a mod convince bro Layth to correct the translations in all the relevant verses to "distinguish" to remove all the confusion ? I have tried before to convince him but apparently have been only partially successful, judging from the translation of 3142 !!
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=7171.msg49035#msg49035