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 except a little hurt. And if they fight against you, they will turn their backs. Then they will not be victorious. 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 they are not all alike. Of the People of the Book there are some who stand by their covenant; they recite the word of God during the night and prostrate themselves before Him, 113 They believe in Allah and the Last Day, and they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and hasten to good deeds. And those are among 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 Indeed those who disbelieve – neither their wealth nor their offspring will help save them in the least, from Allah; and they are the people of fire; remaining in it forever. 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 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 Ah! ye are those who love them, but they love you not,- though ye believe in the whole of the Book. When they meet you, they say, "We believe": But when they are alone, they bite off the very tips of their fingers at you in their rage. Say: "Perish in your rage; Allah knoweth well all the secrets of the heart." 119 They hate to see your success and rejoice if any misfortune befalls you. If you will be patient and pious, their plots can cause no harm to you. God has control over all their actions. 120