Salam. This is my first topic and I hope that I'm not making any mistakes in the way that I create it and approach the issue. If I have done so, please forgive me.
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لِّلَّهِ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۗ وَإِن تُبْدُوا۟ مَا فِىٓ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوْ تُخْفُوهُ يُحَاسِبْكُم بِهِ ٱللَّهُ ۖ فَيَغْفِرُ لِمَن يَشَآءُ وَيُعَذِّبُ مَن يَشَآءُ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
To Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. Hence, whether you(plural) disclose what is within your selves or hide it, Allah calls you to account for it; He then forgives whomever He wills and He punishes whomever He wills, for Allah is All-Powerful over everything.
— Fadel Soliman, Bridges’ translation
I have — to the best of my abilities — looked at key root words of this verse. Yet, the meaning of them all points that God sent to the believers (hence 'you' in its plural form) a revelation that can be plausibly interpreted as saying that we will be held accountable over our sinful thoughts even if we don't act upon them and refrain from doing so in submission to God's commands.
However, another interpretation came into my mind Is God referring to the Day of Judgement (as hinted by "calls you to account" and "He then forgives or punishes whomever he wills" and then revealing that whether we disclose to him (in the Day of Judgement) by voicing it explicitly OR we don't voice it by keeping it undisclosed, the sins we died without repenting will still be accounted for and we will be punished for them or forgiven — because God is All-Knowing even of the things that we keep as a secret?
And another sign that points to the latter interpretation as being the correct one is the way that Allah constructs this revelation — presenting 'hide what is in yourselves' as being antagonistic to 'disclose what is in yourselves' through the separation of these two hypothesis by the means of an exclusive logic operation (or). The reasoning is that a sinful though can't be acted upon by 'disclosing' it; if the thought of killing someone unjustly comes into my mind and I disclose it to a friend of mine, have I acted upon that thought, have I killed that person?
I would like to receive some opinions regarding this verse. And if someone is fluent in Arabic, please elaborate on how this should be properly translated if the translation I provided isn't accurate.
Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to this. May you be rewarded if Allah wills for helping me in the pursuit of truth.