۞ Surely Allah took a covenant with the Children of Israel, and We raised up from them twelve of their leaders, and Allah said: 'Behold, I am with you; if you establish Prayer and pay Zakah and believe in My Prophets and help them, and lend Allah a good loan, I will certainly efface from you your evil deeds, and will surely cause you to enter the Gardens beneath which rivers flow. Whosoever of you disbelieves thereafter has indeed gone astray from the right way. 12 So because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard. They change the words from their (right) places and have abandoned a good part of the Message that was sent to them. And you will not cease to discover deceit in them, except a few of them. But forgive them, and overlook (their misdeeds). Verily, Allah loves Al-Muhsinun (good-doers - see V. 2:112). 13 We also took a covenant from those who said: 'We are Christians'; but they forgot a good portion of the teaching they had been imparted with. Wherefore We aroused enmity and spite between them till the Day of Resurrection, and ultimately Allah will tell them what they had contrived. 14 O People of the Scripture! Now hath Our messenger come unto you, expounding unto you much of that which ye used to hide in the Scripture, and forgiving much. now hath come unto you light from Allah and plain Scripture, 15 whereby God guides to the ways of peace all who seek His good pleasure, bringing them from darkness to the light, by His will, and guiding them to a straight path. 16 Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely, Allah-- He is the Messiah, son of Marium. Say: Who then could control anything as against Allah when He wished to destroy the Messiah son of Marium and his mother and all those on the earth? And Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what is between them; He creates what He pleases; and Allah has power over all things, 17 Say the Jews and the Christians: "We are sons of God and beloved of Him." Say: "Why does He punish you then for your sins? No: You are only mortals, of His creation." He can punish whom He please and pardon whom He will, for God's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them, and everything will go back to Him. 18 O you people of the Book, Our Apostle has come to you when apostles had ceased to come long ago, lest you said: "There did not come to us any messenger of good news or of warnings." So now there has reached you a bearer of good tidings and of warnings; for God has the power over all things. 19