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 will not harm you save a trifling hurt, and if they fight against you they will turn and flee. And afterward they will not be helped. 111 Overshadowed by ignominy are they wherever they may be, save [when they bind themselves again] in a bond with God and a bond with men; for they have earned the burden of God's condemnation, and are overshadowed by humiliation: all this [has befallen them] because they persisted in denying the truth of God's messages and in slaying the prophets against all right: all this, because they rebelled [against God,] and persisted in transgressing the bounds of what is right. 112 ۞ Not are they all alike. Of the people of the Book there are a community steadfast, reciting the revelations of Allah in the hours of night while they prostrate themselves. 113 They believe in Allah and the last day, and they enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and they strive with one another in hastening to good deeds, and those are among the good. 114 And whatever good they do, nothing will be rejected of them; for Allah knows well those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2). 115 Lo! the riches and the progeny of those who disbelieve will not avail them aught against Allah; and such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein. 116 What they spend in the life of this (material) world May be likened to a wind which brings a nipping frost: It strikes and destroys the harvest of men who have wronged their own souls: it is not Allah that hath wronged them, but they wrong themselves. 117 O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not take for your bosom-friends people who are not of your kind. They spare no effort to corrupt you; they would love to see you in distress. Vehement hatred has already come into the open from out of their mouths, but what their hearts conceal is yet worse. We have indeed made the signs [thereof] clear unto you, if you would but use your reason. 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 If good befalls you, it grieves them, and if an evil afflicts you, they rejoice at it; and if you are patient and guard yourselves, their scheme will not injure you in any way; surely Allah comprehends what they do. 120