۞ Undoubtedly Allah made a covenant with the Descendants of Israel, and We appointed twelve chiefs among them; and Allah said, “Indeed I am with you; surely, if you establish the prayer and pay the charity, and believe in My Noble Messengers and respect* them, and lend an excellent loan to Allah, I will surely forgive your sins, and I will surely admit you into Gardens beneath which rivers flow; then after this, if any of you disbelieves, he has certainly gone astray from the Straight Path." (To honour the Holy Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him – is part of faith. To disrespect him is blasphemy.) 12 For their disregard of their solemn covenant with God, We condemned the Israelites and made their hearts hard as stone. Now they displace the words of God and have forgotten their share of the guidance that they had received. Still you receive news of the treachery of all but a few of them. Forgive and ignore them. God loves the righteous ones. 13 And with those who say 'We are Christians' We took compact; and they have forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of. So We have stirred up among them enmity and hatred, till the Day of Resurrection; and God will assuredly tell them of the things they wrought. 14 People of the Book, Our Messenger has come to you. He tells you about the many things that you had been hiding of the Book and forgives you much. A light and a clarifying Book has come to you from God 15 with which Allah guides those who seek His pleasure to the Paths of Peace. By His permission He takes them out from darkness to the light, and guides them to a Straight Path. 16 Those who have said that the Messiah, son of Mary, is God, have, in fact, committed themselves to disbelief. (Muhammad), ask them, "Who can prevent God from destroying the Messiah, his mother and all that is in the earth?" To God belongs all that is in the heavens, the earth, and all that is between them. God creates whatever He wants and He has power over all things. 17 Say the Jews and Christians, 'We are the sons of God, and His beloved ones.' Say: 'Why then does He chastise you for your sins? No; you are mortals, of His creating; He forgives whom He will, and He chastises whom He will.' For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, and all that is between them; to Him is the homecoming. 18 O People of the Book! Now hath come unto you, making (things) clear unto you, Our Messenger, after the break in (the series of) our messengers, lest ye should say: "There came unto us no bringer of glad tidings and no warner (from evil)": But now hath come unto you a bringer of glad tidings and a warner (from evil). And Allah hath power over all things. 19