O you who believe! do not take for guardians those who take your religion for a mockery and a joke, from among those who were given the Book before you and the unbelievers; and be careful of (your duty to) Allah if you are believers. 57 Because they are devoid of understanding, they ridicule your call for prayers saying that it is a useless act. 58 Say: 'People of the Book, do you blame us for any reason other than that we believe in Allah and in what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down before us, and that most of you are evildoers' 59 Then say to them: 'Shall I tell you about those whose retribution with Allah is even worse? They are the ones whom Allah has cursed, and who incurred His wrath and some of whom were changed into apes and swine, and who served the false deities. Such have an even worse rank and have strayed farther away from the right path. 60 When they come to you, they say, 'We believe'; but they have entered in unbelief, and so they have departed in it; God knows very well what they were hiding. 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 Do those of the Lord and the rabbis not forbid them to speak sinfully and to devour what is unlawful? Evil indeed is what they were doing. 63 And the Jews said, “Allah’s hand is tied"; may their hands be tied – and they are accursed for saying so! In fact, both His hands* are free, He bestows upon whomever He wills; and O dear Prophet, this Book which has been sent down upon you from your Lord will cause many of them to advance in their rebellion and disbelief; and We have instilled enmity and hatred between them till the Day of Resurrection; whenever they ignite the flame of war, Allah extinguishes it, and they strive to create chaos in the land; and Allah does not love the mischievous. (* This is a metaphor used to express Allah’s power). 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 established the Torah and the Gospel and what was sent down to them from their Lord they would be eating from above them and from beneath their feet. Some of them are a righteous nation; but many of them evil is what they do. 66