۞ God covenanted the people of Israel and raised twelve leaders among them, and said: "I shall verily be with you. If you fulfil your devotional obligations, pay the zakat and believe in My apostles and support them, and give a goodly loan to God, I shall certainly absolve you of your evil, and admit you to gardens with streams of running water. But whosoever among you denies after this, will have wandered away from the right path." 12 For their disregard of their solemn covenant with God, We condemned the Israelites and made their hearts hard as stone. Now they displace the words of God and have forgotten their share of the guidance that they had received. Still you receive news of the treachery of all but a few of them. Forgive and ignore them. God loves the righteous ones. 13 We had made a solemn covenant with those who call themselves Christians, but they forgot their share of the guidance that was sent to them. We have induced hatred and animosity among them which will remain with them until the Day of Judgment when God will tell them about what they had done. 14 O followers of the Bible! Now there has come unto you Our Apostle, to make clear unto you much of what you have been concealing [from yourselves] of the Bible, and to pardon much. Now there has come unto you from God a light, and a clear divine writ, 15 By which Allah guides those who pursue His pleasure to the ways of peace and brings them out from darknesses into the light, by His permission, and guides them to a straight path. 16 They indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary. Say: Who then can do aught against Allah, if He had willed to destroy the Messiah son of Mary, and his mother and everyone on earth? Allah's is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them. He createth what He will. And Allah is Able to do all things. 17 And [both] the Jews and the Christians say: "We are God's children, and His beloved ones." Say: "Why, then, does He cause you to suffer for your sins? Nay, you are but human beings of His creating. He forgives whom He wills, and He causes to suffer whom He wills: for God's is the dominion over the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and with Him is all journeys' end." 18 O people of the Book! surely there hath come unto you Our apostle, after a cessation of the apostles, expounding unto you, lest ye may say: there came not unto us a bearer of glad tidings nor a warner. So now there surely hath come unto you a bearer of glad tidings and a warner; and Allah is over everything Potent. 19