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 will not harm you save a trifling hurt, and if they fight against you they will turn and flee. And afterward they will not be helped. 111 Abasement is made to cleave to them wherever they are found, except under a covenant with Allah and a covenant with men, and they have become deserving of wrath from Allah, and humiliation is made to cleave to them; this is because they disbelieved in the communications of Allah and slew the prophets unjustly; this is because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits. 112 ۞ Not are they all alike. Of the people of the Book there are a community steadfast, reciting the revelations of Allah in the hours of night while they 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 And whatever good they do, they will not be denied the meed thereof. Allah is Aware of those who ward off (evil). 115 The wealth and the children of the unbelievers can never make them independent of God. They are the dwellers of hell wherein they will live forever. 116 The example of what they spend in the life of this world is like that of a wind accompanied with frost which smites the harvest of a people who wronged themselves, and lays it to waste. It is not Allah who wronged them; rather it is they who wrong themselves. 117 O you who have believed, do not take as intimates those other than yourselves, for they will not spare you [any] ruin. They wish you would have hardship. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater. We have certainly made clear to you the signs, if you will use reason. 118 There you are loving them, and they do not love you. You believe in the entire Book. When they meet you they say: 'We, believe' But when alone, they bite their fingertips at you out of rage. Say: 'Die in your rage! Allah has knowledge of what is in your chests' 119 If a good befalls you, it grieves them, but if some evil overtakes you, they rejoice at it. But if you remain patient and become Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2), not the least harm will their cunning do to you. Surely, Allah surrounds all that they do. 120