O believers, do not make friends with those who mock and make a sport of your faith, who were given the Book before you, and with unbelievers; and fear God if you truly believe; 57 When ye proclaim your call to prayer they take it (but) as mockery and sport; that is because they are a people without understanding. 58 Say, “O People given the Book(s)! What do you dislike in us – except that we believe in Allah and what is sent down to us and what was sent down before, and because most of you are disobedient?” 59 Say: 'Shall I tell you who will receive a worse recompense from Allah than that? Those whom Allah has cursed and with whom He is angry, and made some of them apes and swine, and those who worship the devil. The place of these is worse, and they have strayed further from the Right Path' 60 When they come to you they say: "We believe;" but unbelieving they came and unbelieving go; and God is aware of what they conceal in their hearts. 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 Wherefore is it that the divines and priests forbid them not of their speaking of sin and their devouring of the forbidden? Vile indeed is that which they have been performing! 63 And the Jews said, “Allah’s hand is tied"; may their hands be tied – and they are accursed for saying so! In fact, both His hands* are free, He bestows upon whomever He wills; and O dear Prophet, this Book which has been sent down upon you from your Lord will cause many of them to advance in their rebellion and disbelief; and We have instilled enmity and hatred between them till the Day of Resurrection; whenever they ignite the flame of war, Allah extinguishes it, and they strive to create chaos in the land; and Allah does not love the mischievous. (* This is a metaphor used to express Allah’s power). 64 Had the People of the Book only believed and been God-fearing, We should surely have effaced from them their evil deeds, and caused them to enter Gardens of Bliss. 65 And if they had kept up the Taurat and the Injeel and that which was revealed to them from their Lord, they would certainly have eaten from above them and from beneath their feet there is a party of them keeping to the moderate course, and (as for) most of them, evil is that which they do 66