Believers! Do not seek the friendship of those who were given the Book before you or the disbelievers who ridicule your religion and make a jest of it. Have fear of God, if you are true believers. 57 And when ye call for the prayer they make a mockery and fun thereof. This because they are a people who understand not. 58 Say: "O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Do you criticize us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah, and in (the revelation) which has been sent down to us and in that which has been sent down before (us), and that most of you are Fasiqun [rebellious and disobedient (to Allah)]?" 59 Say: 'Shall I tell you who will receive a worse recompense from Allah than that? Those whom Allah has cursed and with whom He is angry, and made some of them apes and swine, and those who worship the devil. The place of these is worse, and they have strayed further from the Right Path' 60 When they come to thee, they say: "We believe": but in fact they enter with a mind against Faith, and they go out with the same but Allah knoweth fully all that they hide. 61 Thou seest many of them vying in sin and enmity, and how they consume the unlawful; evil is the thing they have been doing. 62 Wherefore is it that the divines and priests forbid them not of their speaking of sin and their devouring of the forbidden? Vile indeed is that which they have been performing! 63 And the Jews say, "The hand of Allah is chained." Chained are their hands, and cursed are they for what they say. Rather, both His hands are extended; He spends however He wills. And that which has been revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase many of them in transgression and disbelief. And We have cast among them animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it. And they strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters. 64 If only the People of the Book would believe and be mindful of God, We would surely pardon their sins and We would surely admit them into the Gardens of Bliss. 65 Had they followed the Laws of the Old and New Testaments and what was revealed to them from their Lord, they would have received Our bounties from above and below in abundance. Some of them are modest people, but many of them commit the worst sins. 66