O Believers! take not the Jews or Christians²² as friends. They are but one another’s friends. If any one of you taketh them for his friends, he surely is one of them! God will not guide the evil doers.

So shalt thou see the diseased at heart speed away to them, and say, “We fear lest a change of fortune befall us.” But haply God will of himself bring about some victory or event of His own ordering: then soon will they repent them of their secret imaginings.

Then will the faithful say, “What! are these they who swore, by their most solemn oath, that they were surely with you?” Vain their works; and themselves shall come to ruin.

O ye who believe! should any of you desert His religion, God will then raise up a people loved by Him, and loving Him, lowly towards the faithful, haughty towards the Infidels. For the cause of God will they contend, and not fear the blame of the blamer. This is the Grace of God! On whom He will He bestoweth it! God is Vast, Omniscient!

Verily, your protector is God and His Apostle, and those who believe, who observe prayer, and pay the alms of obligation, and who bow in worship.

And whoso take God and His Apostle, and those who believe for friends, they truly are the people of God; they shall have the upper hand.

O ye who believe! take not such of those who have received the Scriptures before you, as scoff and jest at your religion, or the Infidels, for your friends, but fear God if ye are believers:

Nor those who when ye call to prayer, make it an object of raillery and derision. This they do because they are a people who understand not.

Say:²³ O people of the Book! do ye not disavow us only because we believe in God, and in what He hath sent down to us, and in what He hath sent down aforetime, and because most of you are doers of ill?

Say: Can I announce to you any retribution worse than that which awaiteth them with God? They whom God hath cursed and with whom He hath been angry—some of them hath He changed into apes and swine; and they who worship Thagout are in evil plight, and have gone far astray from the right path!

When they presented themselves to you they said, “We believe;” but Infidels they came in unto you, and Infidels they went forth! God well knew what they concealed.

Many of them shalt thou see hastening together to wickedness and malice, and to eat unlawful things. Shame on them for what they have done!

Had not their doctors and teachers forbidden their uttering wickedness, and their eating unlawful food, bad indeed would have been their doings!

“The hand of God,” say the Jews, “is chained up.”²⁴ Their own hands shall be chained up—and for that which they have said shall they be cursed. Nay! outstretched are both His hands! At His own pleasure does He bestow gifts. That which hath been sent down to thee from thy Lord will surely increase the rebellion and unbelief of many of them; and we have put enmity and hatred between them that shall last till the day of the Resurrection. Oft as they kindle a beacon fire for war shall God quench it! and their aim will be to abet disorder on the earth: but God loveth not the abettors of disorder.

But if the people of the Book believe and have the fear of God, we will surely put away their sins from them, and will bring them into gardens of delight: and if that they observe the law and the Evangel, and what hath been sent down to them from their Lord, they shall surely have their fill of good things from above them and from beneath their feet. Some there are among them who act aright; but many of them— how evil are their doings!