O Ye are the best community sent forth unto mankind; ye command that which is reputable and ye prevent that which is disreputable. and ye believe in Allah. If the people of the Book believe, surely it were better for them. Of them are believers, and most of them are transgressors. 110 [but] these can never inflict more than a passing hurt on you; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs upon you [in flight,] and will not be succoured. 111 Degraded they shall live wheresoever they be unless they make an alliance with God and alliance with men, for they have incurred the anger of God, and misery overhangs them. That is because they denied the signs of God and killed the prophets unjustly, and rebelled, and went beyond the limit. 112 ۞ Yet they are not all alike. There are among the People of the Book an upstanding nation that recite the verses of Allah (the Koran) throughout the night and prostrate themselves, 113 They believe in Allah and the Last Day, and enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency, and vie one with another in good works. These are of the righteous. 114 They will never be denied the rewards of their good deeds. God knows well about the pious. 115 [But,] behold, as for those who are bent on denying the truth - neither their worldly possessions nor their children will in the least avail them against God: and it is they who are destined for the fire, therein to abide. 116 The likeness of that which they expend in this life of the world is as the likeness of a wind wherein is intense cold, it befalleth the tilth of a people who have wronged themselves, and destroyeth it. Allah wronged them not, but themselves they wrong. 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 Lo! You are the ones who love them but they love you not, and you believe in all the Scriptures [i.e. you believe in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel), while they disbelieve in your Book, the Quran]. And when they meet you, they say, "We believe". But when they are alone, they bite the tips of their fingers at you in rage. Say: "Perish in your rage. Certainly, Allah knows what is in the breasts (all the secrets)." 119 If you are visited by good fortune, it vexes them; but if you are smitten by evil, they rejoice at it. Yet if you are patient and godfearing, their guile will hurt you nothing; God encompasses the things they do. 120