O you who have believed, take not those who have taken your religion in ridicule and amusement among the ones who were given the Scripture before you nor the disbelievers as allies. And fear Allah, if you should [truly] be believers. 57 and when you call to prayer, take it in mockery and as a sport; that is because they are a people who have no 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 inform you who will receive the worst chastisement from God? They who were condemned by God, and on whom fell His wrath, and those who were turned to apes and swine, and those who worship the powers of evil. They are in the worse gradation, and farthest away from the right path." 60 When they come to you they say, "We believe," but they come [with the resolve] to deny the truth and leave in the same state. God knows best what they are concealing. 61 You will see many of them hastening towards sin and transgression and devouring unlawful earnings. Indeed what they do is evil. 62 Why do the rabbis and religious scholars not forbid them from saying what is sinful and devouring what is unlawful? How wretched is what they have been practicing. 63 The Jews say, "The hand of God is tied up." May their own hands be tied up and may they be cursed for what they say. No indeed! His hands are both outstretched: He bestows as He will. What is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase in most of them their obstinate rebellion and denial of truth; and We have sown among them enmity and hatred till the Day of Resurrection. Whenever they kindle the fire of war, God puts it out. They spread evil in the land, but God does not love the evil-doers. 64 If the followers of the Bible would but attain to [true] faith and God-consciousness, We should indeed efface their [previous] bad deeds, and indeed bring them into gardens of bliss; 65 If they had observed the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have been nourished from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them there are people who are moderate, but many of them are of evil conduct. 66