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 cannot harm you except cause some trouble; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs on you; then they will not be helped. 111 Overshadowed by ignominy are they wherever they may be, save [when they bind themselves again] in a bond with God and a bond with men; for they have earned the burden of God's condemnation, and are overshadowed by humiliation: all this [has befallen them] because they persisted in denying the truth of God's messages and in slaying the prophets against all right: all this, because they rebelled [against God,] and persisted in transgressing the bounds of what is right. 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 who believe in Allah and the Last Day, who order honor and forbid dishonor and race in good works. These are the righteous. 114 And whatever good they do - never will it be removed from them. And Allah is Knowing of the righteous. 115 Indeed, those who disbelieve - never will their wealth or their children avail them against Allah at all, and those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally. 116 The wealth they spend in this worldly life is like a freezing wind that smites the harvest of a people who have wronged themselves and destroys it. Allah has not wronged them, but they wronged themselves. 117 O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand. 118 There are people whom you love, but they do not love you, despite your belief in all the (heavenly) Books. On meeting you They proclaim belief on meeting you, but in private, bite their fingers at you in anger. Tell them, "Perish in your rage! God knows well what is in everyone's hearts". 119 When you are touched with good fortune, they grieve, but when evil befalls you, they rejoice. If you are patient and cautious, their guile will never harm you. Allah encompasses what they do. 120