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 do you no harm but annoyance; and if they fight you they will only turn their backs, then no help will reach them. 111 Abasement shall be pitched on them, wherever they are come upon, except they be in a bond of God, and a bond of the people; they will be laden with the burden of God's anger, and poverty shall be pitched on them; that, because they disbelieved in God's signs, and slew the Prophets without right; that, for that they acted rebelliously and were transgressors. 112 ۞ Yet they are not all alike; some of the People of the Book are a nation upstanding, that recite God's signs in the watches of the night, bowing themselves, 113 They believe in God and the Last Day, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and vie with one another in doing good works: and these are among the righteous. 114 Whatever good they do, for them it shall not be denied. Allah knows the cautious. 115 Indeed, those who disbelieve - never will their wealth or their children avail them against Allah at all, and those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally. 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 ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks: They will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: Rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths: What their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs, if ye have wisdom. 118 Lo! It is you who love them but they do not love you even though you believe in the whole of the (heavenly) Book. When they meet you they say: 'We believe', but when they are by themselves they bite their fingers in rage at you. Say: 'Perish in your rage.' Allah knows even what lies hidden in their breasts. 119 If there happeneth unto you any good it grieveth them, and if there happeneth unto you an ill, they rejoice thereat. And if ye remain persevering and God - fearing their guile shall not harm you at all. Verily Allah is of that which they work Encompasser. 120