O you who have attained to faith! Do not take for your friends such as mock at your faith and make a jest of it - be they from among those who have been vouchsafed revelation before your time, or [from among] those who deny the truth [of revelation as such] - but remain conscious of God, if you are [truly] believers: 57 And when you call for Prayer, they take it for a mockery and sport. That is because they are a people who do not understand. 58 Say: "O followers of earlier revelation! Do you find fault with us for no other reason than that we believe in God [alone,] and in that which He has bestowed from on high upon us as well as that which He has bestowed aforetime? - or [is it only] because most of you are iniquitous?" 59 Say: "Shall I tell you who, in the sight of God, deserves a yet worse retribution than these? They whom God has rejected and whom He has condemned, and whom He has turned into apes and swine because they worshipped the powers of evil: these are yet worse in station, and farther astray from the right path [than the mockers]." 60 When they come to you they say: "We believe;" but unbelieving they came and unbelieving go; and God is aware of what they conceal in their hearts. 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 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 And the Jews said, “Allah’s hand is tied"; may their hands be tied – and they are accursed for saying so! In fact, both His hands* are free, He bestows upon whomever He wills; and O dear Prophet, this Book which has been sent down upon you from your Lord will cause many of them to advance in their rebellion and disbelief; and We have instilled enmity and hatred between them till the Day of Resurrection; whenever they ignite the flame of war, Allah extinguishes it, and they strive to create chaos in the land; and Allah does not love the mischievous. (* This is a metaphor used to express Allah’s power). 64 And if only the People of the Scripture had believed and feared Allah, We would have removed from them their misdeeds and admitted them to Gardens of Pleasure. 65 And had they established the Taurat and the Injil and that which hath now been sent down unto them from their Lord, they would have devoured from above them and from beneath them. Among them is a community right-doing; but many of them - vile is that which they work! 66