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 shall not be able to harm you save with small hurt, and if they fight you, they shall turn upon you their backs; then they shall be succoured not. 111 Abasement shall be pitched on them, wherever they are come upon, except they be in a bond of God, and a bond of the people; they will be laden with the burden of God's anger, and poverty shall be pitched on them; that, because they disbelieved in God's signs, and slew the Prophets without right; that, for that they acted rebelliously and were transgressors. 112 ۞ Yet all are not alike: among the People of the Book there are upright people who recite the messages of Allah in the watches of the night and prostrate themselves in worship. 113 They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous. 114 And the good they do will not go unaccepted; for God is aware of those who keep away from evil. 115 As for those who deny the truth, neither their possessions nor their children shall avail them in the least against God. They will be inmates of the Fire. They will remain there for ever; 116 What they spend in the life of this world is like a frosty wind which smites and destroys the crops of a people who had wronged themselves. God did not wrong them, they wronged themselves. 117 O Ye who believe! take not for an intimate anyone besides yourselves; they shall not be remiss in doing you mischief. Fain would they that which distresseth you. Surely their malice hath shewn itself by their mouths, and that which their breasts conceal is greater still. Surely We have expounded unto you the signs, if ye will but reflect. 118 Lo! It is you who love them but they do not love you even though you believe in the whole of the (heavenly) Book. When they meet you they say: 'We believe', but when they are by themselves they bite their fingers in rage at you. Say: 'Perish in your rage.' Allah knows even what lies hidden in their breasts. 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