Believers, do not take as guides those who were given the Book before you who have made of your religion a jest and a pastime, nor the unbelievers. Have fear of Allah, if you are believers. 57 And when you call for Prayer, they take it for a mockery and sport. That is because they are a people who do not understand. 58 Say: O People of the Scripture! Do ye blame us for aught else than that we believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed aforetime, and because most of you are evil-livers? 59 Say thou: shall I declare unto you something worse as a way with Allah than that? Whomsoever Allah hath accursed and is angered with, and of whom some He hath made apes and swine and slaves of the devil - those are worst in abode and furthest astray from the level way. 60 And when they come to you, they say, "We believe." But they have entered with disbelief [in their hearts], and they have certainly left with it. And Allah is most knowing of what they were concealing. 61 And thou seest many of them vying one with another in sin and transgression and their devouring of illicit gain. Verily evil is what they do. 62 Why do not the rabbis and the priests forbid their evil-speaking and their devouring of illicit gain? Verily evil is their handiwork. 63 And the Jews say: "God's hand is shackled!" It is their own hands that are shackled; and rejected [by God] are they because of this their assertion. Nay, but wide are His hands stretched out: He dispenses [bounty] as He wills. But all that has been bestowed from on high upon thee [O Prophet] by thy Sustainer is bound to make many of them yet more stubborn in their overweening arrogance and in their denial of the truth. And so We have cast enmity and hatred among the followers of the Bible, [to last] until Resurrection Day; every time they light the fires of war, God extinguishes them; and they labour hard to spread corruption on earth: and God does not love the spreaders of corruption. 64 And had the people of the Book believed and feared, We would surely have expiated from them their misdeeds and would surely have made them enter the Garden of Delight. 65 Had the People of the Book observed the Torah and the Gospel, and all that had been revealed to them from their Lord, sustenance would have been showered over them from above and risen from beneath their feet. Some among them certainly keep to the right path; but many of them do things which are evil. 66