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 shall by no means harm you but with a slight evil; and if they fight with you they shall turn (their) backs to you, then shall they not be helped. 111 Humiliation will strike them wherever they seek protection, except when they seek protection from God and the people. They have incurred the wrath of God unto themselves and have been struck with destitution for their rejection of the revelations of God and for unjustly murdering the Prophets. It is all because of their transgression and rebellion. 112 ۞ Yet they are not all alike. There are among the People of the Book an upstanding nation that recite the verses of Allah (the Koran) throughout the night and prostrate themselves, 113 believing in God and in the Last Day, bidding to honour and forbidding dishonour, vying one with the other in good works; those are of the righteous. 114 And they will not be denied the reward of whatever good they do; and Allah knows the pious. 115 As for those who deny the truth, neither their possessions nor their children shall avail them in the least against God. They will be inmates of the Fire. They will remain there for ever; 116 The likeness of that they expend in this present life is as the likeness of a freezing blast that smites the tillage of a people who wronged themselves, and it destroyed that; God wronged them not, but themselves they wronged. 117 O Ye who believe! take not for an intimate anyone besides yourselves; they shall not be remiss in doing you mischief. Fain would they that which distresseth you. Surely their malice hath shewn itself by their mouths, and that which their breasts conceal is greater still. Surely We have expounded unto you the signs, if ye will but reflect. 118 Lo! it is you who love them whereas they love you not, and you believe in the Book, all of it. When they meet you, they say: we believe. And when they are alone, they bite their fingertips at you in rage. Say thou: die in your rage. Verily Allah is Knower of that which is in the breasts. 119 Whenever something good happens to you, it grieves them; but when evil befalls you, they rejoice. If you persevere and fear God, their designs will never harm you in the least: God encompasses all that they do. 120