O believers, do not make friends with those who mock and make a sport of your faith, who were given the Book before you, and with unbelievers; and fear God if you truly believe; 57 When you call them to prayer, they treat it as a jest and a diversion. This is because they are devoid of understanding. 58 Say thou: O people of the Book! what is it that ye persecute us for save that we believe in Allah and in that which hath been sent down unto us and that which hath been sent down aforetime? and most of you are transgressors. 59 Say thou: shall I declare unto you something worse as a way with Allah than that? Whomsoever Allah hath accursed and is angered with, and of whom some He hath made apes and swine and slaves of the devil - those are worst in abode and furthest astray from the level way. 60 And when they come to you they say: we believe; whereas surely with infidelity they entered and surely with it they went forth. And Allah is Knower of that which they have been concealing. 61 And you see many of them (Jews) hurrying for sin and transgression, and eating illegal things [as bribes and Riba (usury), etc.]. Evil indeed is that which they have been doing. 62 Why is it that their scholars and jurists do not forbid them from sinful utterances and devouring unlawful earnings? Indeed they have been contriving evil. 63 The Jews have said, 'God's hand is fettered.' Fettered are their hands, and they are cursed for what they have said. Nay, but His hands are outspread; He expends how He will. And what has been sent down to thee from thy Lord will surely increase many of them in insolence and unbelief; and We have cast between them enmity and hatred, till the Day of Resurrection. As often as they light a fire for war, God will extinguish it. They hasten about the earth, to do corruption there; and God loves not the workers of corruption. 64 If only the People of the Scripture would believe and ward off (evil), surely We should remit their sins from them and surely We should bring them into Gardens of Delight. 65 If only they had stood fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that was sent to them from their Lord, they would have enjoyed happiness from every side. There is from among them a party on the right course: but many of them follow a course that is evil. 66