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 cannot harm you except cause some trouble; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs on you; then 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 ۞ Yet they are not all alike. Of the People of the Book there are some who stand by their covenant; they recite the word of God during the night and prostrate themselves before Him, 113 They accept faith in Allah and the Last Day, and enjoin good deeds and forbid immorality, and hasten to perform good deeds; and they are the righteous. 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 As for those who disbelieve, neither their riches nor their children shall help them a thing from Allah. They are the people of the Fire, and there they shall remain for ever. 116 The example of what they spend in this worldly life is like that of a wind containing frost which strikes the harvest of a people who have wronged themselves and destroys it. And Allah has not wronged them, but they wrong themselves. 117 O you who believe! do not take for intimate friends from among others than your own people; they do not fall short of inflicting loss upon you; they love what distresses you; vehement hatred has already appeared from out of their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater still; indeed, We have made the communications clear to you, if you will understand. 118 It is you who love them, but they do not love you; you believe in all the revealed Books. When they meet you, they say, "We believe," but when they are alone, they bite their fingertips with rage. Say, "Die of rage!" God is aware of what your hearts contain. 119 If good comes your way, they are vexed; but if evil befalls you they are pleased and rejoice; yet if you are patient and guard yourselves against evil, their cunning will not harm you in the least, for whatsoever they do is well within the reach of God. 120