YOU ARE indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for [the good of] mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in God. Now if the followers of earlier revelation had attained to [this kind of] faith, it would have been for their own good; [but only few] among them are believers, while most of them are iniquitous: 110 They will do you no harm, barring a trifling annoyance; and if they fight against you, they will show you their backs, and they will not be helped. 111 They have been put under humiliation [by Allah] wherever they are overtaken, except for a covenant from Allah and a rope from the Muslims. And they have drawn upon themselves anger from Allah and have been put under destitution. That is because they disbelieved in the verses of Allah and killed the prophets without right. That is because they disobeyed and [habitually] transgressed. 112 ۞ They are not all alike. Of the People of the Scripture there is a staunch community who recite the revelations of Allah in the night season, falling prostrate (before Him). 113 who believe in Allah and the Last Day, who order honor and forbid dishonor and race in good works. These are the righteous. 114 and they will not be denied [the reward] for whatever good deeds they do: God knows the righteous. 115 Indeed those who disbelieve – neither their wealth nor their offspring will help save them in the least, from Allah; and they are the people of fire; remaining in it forever. 116 The likeness of that which they spend in this life of the world is as the likeness of a biting, icy wind which smiteth the harvest of a people who have wronged themselves, and devastateth it. Allah wronged them not, but they do wrong themselves. 117 O ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks: They will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: Rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths: What their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs, if ye have wisdom. 118 Listen! It is you who love them and they do not love you, whereas the fact is that you believe in all the Books; when they meet you they say, “We believe”; and when they are alone they chew their fingers at you with rage; say, “Die in your frenzy!” Allah knows well what lies within the hearts. 119 If good fortune comes to you, it grieves them; and if evil befalls you, they rejoice in it. But if you are patient in adversity and conscious of God, their guile cannot harm you at all: for, verily, God encompasses [with His might] all that they do. 120