O you who have believed, take not those who have taken your religion in ridicule and amusement among the ones who were given the Scripture before you nor the disbelievers as allies. And fear Allah, if you should [truly] be believers. 57 (Nor make friends with) those who, when you call (the faithful) to prayer, make mock of it and jest, because they do not understand. 58 Say: 'People of the Book, do you blame us for any other cause than that we believe in God, and what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down before, and that most of you are ungodly?' 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 unto you (Muslims), they say: We believe; but they came in unbelief and they went out in the same; and Allah knoweth best what they were hiding. 61 You can see many of them competing with each other in sin, hostility, and in taking usury. What they had been doing is certainly evil. 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 say: the hand of God is fettered. Fettered be their own hands, and cursed be they for that which they have said! Aye! His both hands are wide open. He expendeth howsoever He listeth. And surely that which hath been sent down to thee from thy Lord increaseth many of them in exorbitance and infidelity. And We have cast among them enmity and spite till the Day of Judgement: so oft as they kindle the fire of war Allah extinguisheth it, and they strive after corruption in the land, and Allah approveth not the corrupters. 64 If only the People of the Book had believed and been righteous, We should indeed have blotted out their iniquities and admitted them to gardens of bliss. 65 And had they kept the Taurat and the Injeel established, and what was sent down towards them from their Lord, they would have received sustenance from above and from beneath their feet; among them is a group who is fair; but most of them commit extremely evil deeds. 66