Believers, do not take as guides those who were given the Book before you who have made of your religion a jest and a pastime, nor the unbelievers. Have fear of Allah, if you are believers. 57 When you call to prayer, they treat it as a jest and a pastime. That is because they are a people who have no 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: "Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!" 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 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 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 The Jews say: 'The Hand of Allah is chained' Their own hands are chained! And they are cursed for what they said! Rather, His Hands are both outstretched, He spends as He will. That which Allah has sent down to you will surely increase the tyranny and disbelief of many of them. We have stirred among them enmity and hatred up until the Day of Resurrection. Whenever they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it. They spread corruption in the land, and Allah does not love those who corrupt. 64 If the followers of the Bible would but attain to [true] faith and God-consciousness, We should indeed efface their [previous] bad deeds, and indeed bring them into gardens of bliss; 65 Had the People of the Book observed the Torah and the Gospel, and all that had been revealed to them from their Lord, sustenance would have been showered over them from above and risen from beneath their feet. Some among them certainly keep to the right path; but many of them do things which are evil. 66