O you who believe! Take not for Auliya' (protectors and helpers) those who take your religion for a mockery and fun from among those who received the Scripture (Jews and Christians) before you, nor from among the disbelievers; and fear Allah if you indeed are true believers. 57 for, when you call to prayer, they mock at it and make a jest of it - simply because they are people who do not use their reason. 58 Say, "People of the Book! Do you resent us only because we believe in God and in what has been revealed to us and to others before, and because most of you are disobedient?" 59 Say: 'Shall I tell you of a recompense with God, worse than that? Whomsoever God has cursed, and with whom He is wroth, and made some of them apes and swine, and worshippers of idols -- they are worse situated, and have gone further astray from the right way. 60 When they come to thee, they say: "We believe": but in fact they enter with a mind against Faith, and they go out with the same but Allah knoweth fully all that they hide. 61 And thou canst see many of them vie with one another in sinning and tyrannical conduct and in their swallowing of all that is evil. 62 Why do the masters and the rabbis not forbid them to utter sin, and consume the unlawful? Evil is the thing they have been working. 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 Had the People of the Book accepted the faith and observed piety, certainly, We would have redeemed their bad deeds and admitted them into a blissful Paradise. 65 Had they performed the Torah and the Gospel, and what was sent down to them from their Lord, they would have eaten both what was above them, and what was beneath their feet. Some of them are a just nation; but many of them -- evil are the things they do. 66