۞ God made a covenant with the Children of Israel; and raised among them twelve leaders. God said, "Surely, I am with you. If you attend to your prayers and pay the alms and believe in My messengers and support them, and give a generous loan to God, I will certainly forgive you your sins and admit you into Gardens through which rivers flow. Whoever among you denies the truth after this shall go astray from the straight path." 12 Then, for their breach of the covenant We cast them away from Our mercy and caused their hearts to harden. (And now they are in such a state that) they pervert the words from their context and thus distort their meaning, and have forgotten a good portion of the teaching they were imparted, and regarding all except a few of them you continue to learn that they committed acts of treachery. Pardon them, then, and overlook their deeds. Surely Allah loves those who do good deeds. 13 And We made a covenant with those who proclaimed, “We are Christians” – they then forgot a large portion of the advices given to them; We have therefore instilled enmity and hatred between them till the Day of Resurrection; and Allah will soon inform them of what they were doing. 14 People of the Book, now there has come to you Our Messenger, making clear to you many things you have been concealing of the Book, and effacing many things. There has come to you from God a light, and a Book Manifest 15 Whereby Allah guideth him who seeketh His good pleasure unto paths of peace. He bringeth them out of darkness unto light by His decree, and guideth them unto a straight path. 16 They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary. Say, "Then who could prevent Allah at all if He had intended to destroy Christ, the son of Mary, or his mother or everyone on the earth?" And to Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them. He creates what He wills, and Allah is over all things competent. 17 And the Jews and the Christians say: We are the sons of Allah and His beloved ones. Say: Why does He then chastise you for your faults? Nay, you are mortals from among those whom He has created, He forgives whom He pleases and chastises whom He pleases; and Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what is between them, and to Him is the eventual coming. 18 O People given the Book(s)! Indeed this Noble Messenger (Prophet Mohammed – peace and blessings be upon him) of Ours has come to you, revealing to you Our commands, after the Noble Messengers had stopped arriving for ages, for you might claim, “Never did any Harbinger of Glad Tidings or Herald of Warning come to us” – so this Harbinger of Glad Tidings and Herald of Warning has come to you; and Allah is Able to do all things. 19