صفحہ 64 صفحة ٦٤

Everything in the heavens and earth belongs to God; it is to Him that all things return.

[Believers], you are the best community singled out for people: you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in God. If the People of the Book had also believed, it would have been better for them. For although some of them do believe, most of them are lawbreakers-

they will not do you much harm: even if they come out to fight you, they will soon turn tail; they will get no help-

and, unless they hold fast to a lifeline from God and from mankind, they are overshadowed by vulnerability wherever they are found. They have drawn God’s wrath upon themselves. They are overshadowed by weakness, too, because they have persistently disbelieved in God’s revelation and killed prophets without any right, all because of their disobedience and boundless transgression.

But they are not all alike. There are some among the People of the Book who are upright, who recite God’s revelations during the night, who bow down in worship,

who believe in God and the Last Day, who order what is right and forbid what is wrong, who are quick to do good deeds. These people are among the righteous

and they will not be denied [the reward] for whatever good deeds they do: God knows exactly who is conscious of Him.