YOU ARE indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for [the good of] mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in God. Now if the followers of earlier revelation had attained to [this kind of] faith, it would have been for their own good; [but only few] among them are believers, while most of them are iniquitous: 110 [but] these can never inflict more than a passing hurt on you; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs upon you [in flight,] and will not be succoured. 111 Disgrace has been destined for them – wherever they are they shall not find peace, except by a rope from Allah and a rope from men – and they have deserved the wrath of Allah, and misery is destined for them; that is because they used to disbelieve in the signs of Allah, and unjustly martyr the Prophets; that was for their disobedience and transgression. 112 ۞ Yet all are not alike: among the People of the Book there are upright people who recite the messages of Allah in the watches of the night and prostrate themselves in worship. 113 believing in God and in the Last Day, bidding to honour and forbidding dishonour, vying one with the other in good works; those are of the righteous. 114 Whatever good they do shall not go unappreciated, and Allah fully knows those who are pious. 115 The wealth and the children of the unbelievers can never make them independent of God. They are the dwellers of hell wherein they will live forever. 116 The example of what they spend in this worldly life is like that of a wind containing frost which strikes the harvest of a people who have wronged themselves and destroys it. And Allah has not wronged them, but they wrong themselves. 117 O you who have believed, do not take as intimates those other than yourselves, for they will not spare you [any] ruin. They wish you would have hardship. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater. We have certainly made clear to you the signs, if you will use reason. 118 There are people whom you love, but they do not love you, despite your belief in all the (heavenly) Books. On meeting you They proclaim belief on meeting you, but in private, bite their fingers at you in anger. Tell them, "Perish in your rage! God knows well what is in everyone's hearts". 119 If you are visited by good fortune, it vexes them; but if you are smitten by evil, they rejoice at it. Yet if you are patient and godfearing, their guile will hurt you nothing; God encompasses the things they do. 120