۞ Allah made a covenant of old with the Children of Israel and We raised among them twelve chieftains, and Allah said: Lo! I am with you. If ye establish worship and pay the poor-due, and believe in My messengers and support them, and lend unto Allah a kindly loan, surely I shall remit your sins, and surely I shall bring you into Gardens underneath which rivers flow. Whoso among you disbelieveth after this will go astray from a plain road. 12 Then, for their breach of the covenant We cast them away from Our mercy and caused their hearts to harden. (And now they are in such a state that) they pervert the words from their context and thus distort their meaning, and have forgotten a good portion of the teaching they were imparted, and regarding all except a few of them you continue to learn that they committed acts of treachery. Pardon them, then, and overlook their deeds. Surely Allah loves those who do good deeds. 13 And We made a covenant with those who proclaimed, “We are Christians” – they then forgot a large portion of the advices given to them; We have therefore instilled enmity and hatred between them till the Day of Resurrection; and Allah will soon inform them of what they were doing. 14 People of the Book! Our Messenger (Muhammad) has come to clarify to you much of what you have hidden of the Book, and to forgive you much. A light has come to you from Allah and a Clear Book, 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 Indeed those who said: 'Christ, the son of Mary, he is indeed God', disbelieved. Say (O Muhammad!): 'Who could have overruled Allah had He so willed to destroy Christ, the son of Mary, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?' For to Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them; He creates what He wills. Allah is All-Powerful. 17 And [both] the Jews and the Christians say: "We are God's children, and His beloved ones." Say: "Why, then, does He cause you to suffer for your sins? Nay, you are but human beings of His creating. He forgives whom He wills, and He causes to suffer whom He wills: for God's is the dominion over the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and with Him is all journeys' end." 18 People of the Book, now there has come to you Our Messenger, making things clear to you, upon an interval between the Messengers lest you should say, 'There has not come to us any bearer of good tidings, neither any warner. Indeed, there has come to you a bearer of good tidings and a warner; God is powerful over everything. 19