Rest assured that whosoever from among the Muslims or the Jews or the Christians or the Sabaeans believes in Allah and the Last Day, and performs good deeds, he will have his reward with his Lord and he will have no cause for fear and grief. 62 [Children of Israel], We made a covenant with you and raised the mountain high above you, saying, "Hold fast to what We have given you and bear its contents in mind, so that you may guard yourselves [against evil]." 63 Then ye turned away there after; so had not the grace of Allah been unto you and His mercy, ye had surely become of the losers. 64 You know and have known already those among you who had broken the sanctity of the Sabbath, and to whom We had said: "Become (like) apes despised," 65 So We made this punishment an example to their own and to succeeding generations and a lesson to those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2). 66 When Moses said to his people, "God commands you to sacrifice a cow," they asked, "Are you mocking us?" "God forbid, how would I be so ignorant," said Moses. 67 They demanded, "Ask your Lord to describe the kind of cow He wants us to slaughter." Moses explained, "It must be neither too old nor too young, thus do whatever you are commanded to do." 68 They said: supplicate for us unto thy Lord that He make manifest unto us whatever her colour should be. He said: verily He saith, she should be a yellow cow the colour whereof is deepest, delighting the beholders. 69 They said: Call on your Lord for our sake to make it plain to us what she is, for surely to us the cows are all alike, and if Allah please we shall surely be guided aright. 70 Moses answered, "Your Lord says, she should be a heifer which has not been yoked to plough the land or water the fields, a heifer free from any blemish." "Now you have told us the truth," they answered, and they sacrificed it, though they would rather not have done it. 71