Believers! Do not seek the friendship of those who were given the Book before you or the disbelievers who ridicule your religion and make a jest of it. Have fear of God, if you are true believers. 57 When you call them to prayer, they treat it as a jest and a diversion. This is because they are devoid of understanding. 58 Say to them: 'People of the Book! Do you hate us for anything else except that we believe in Allah, and in the teaching which has been revealed to us and in the teaching which was revealed before? Indeed most of you are transgressors.' 59 Then say to them: 'Shall I tell you about those whose retribution with Allah is even worse? They are the ones whom Allah has cursed, and who incurred His wrath and some of whom were changed into apes and swine, and who served the false deities. Such have an even worse rank and have strayed farther away from the right path. 60 When they come to thee, they say: "We believe": but in fact they enter with a mind against Faith, and they go out with the same but Allah knoweth fully all that they hide. 61 And you see many of them hastening into sin and aggression and the devouring of [what is] unlawful. How wretched is what they have been doing. 62 Do those of the Lord and the rabbis not forbid them to speak sinfully and to devour what is unlawful? Evil indeed is what they were doing. 63 The Jews say, "The hand of God is tied up." May their own hands be tied up and may they be cursed for what they say. No indeed! His hands are both outstretched: He bestows as He will. What is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase in most of them their obstinate rebellion and denial of truth; and We have sown among them enmity and hatred till the Day of Resurrection. Whenever they kindle the fire of war, God puts it out. They spread evil in the land, but God does not love the evil-doers. 64 If only the People of the Book had believed and been righteous, We should indeed have blotted out their iniquities and admitted them to gardens of bliss. 65 If only they had stood fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that was sent to them from their Lord, they would have enjoyed happiness from every side. There is from among them a party on the right course: but many of them follow a course that is evil. 66