O Ye who believe! Choose not for guardians such of those who received the Scripture before you, and of the disbelievers, as make a jest and sport of your religion. But keep your duty to Allah if ye are true believers. 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 followers of earlier revelation! Do you find fault with us for no other reason than that we believe in God [alone,] and in that which He has bestowed from on high upon us as well as that which He has bestowed aforetime? - or [is it only] because most of you are iniquitous?" 59 Say, "Shall I tell you who will receive a worse reward from God? Those whom God has rejected and with whom He has been angry. They were condemned as apes and swine and those who worship the evil. These are in the worst plight and farthest astray from the right path." 60 Whenever they come to you they say: 'We believe,' whereas, in fact, they come disbelieving, and go away disbelieving, and Allah knows all that they hide. 61 And you will see many of them striving with one another to hasten in sin and exceeding the limits, and their eating of what is unlawfully acquired; certainly evil is that which they do. 62 Why do their rabbis and scholars not forbid them to utter sinful words or to consume what is unlawful? Their actions are indeed vile. 63 The Jews say: "Allah's Hand is tied up (i.e. He does not give and spend of His Bounty)." Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for what they uttered. Nay, both His Hands are widely outstretched. He spends (of His Bounty) as He wills. Verily, the Revelation that has come to you from Allah increases in most of them their obstinate rebellion and disbelief. We have put enmity and hatred amongst them till the Day of Resurrection. Every time they kindled the fire of war, Allah extinguished it; and they (ever) strive to make mischief on earth. And Allah does not like the Mufsidun (mischief-makers). 64 Had the People of the Book accepted the faith and observed piety, certainly, We would have redeemed their bad deeds and admitted them into a blissful Paradise. 65 Had they followed the Laws of the Old and New Testaments and what was revealed to them from their Lord, they would have received Our bounties from above and below in abundance. Some of them are modest people, but many of them commit the worst sins. 66