O ye who believe! remember God's favour towards you, when a people intended to stretch their hands against you, but He withheld their hands from you[1]; and upon God let believers rely.
15 God did take a compact from the children of Israel, and raised up of them twelve wardens; and God said, ‘Verily, I am with you, if ye be steadfast in prayer, and give alms, and believe in my apostles, and assist them, and lend to God a goodly loan; then will I cover your offences and make you enter gardens beneath which rivers flow: and whoso disbelieves after that, he hath erred from the level way.
And for that they broke their compact, we cursed them, and placed in their hearts hardness, so that they perverted the words from their places, and forgot a portion of what they were reminded of[2].
But thou wilt not cease to light upon treachery amongst them, save a few of them; but pardon them and shun them; verily, God loves the kind.
And of those who say, ‘Verily, we are Christians,’ we have taken a compact; but they have forgotten a portion of what they were reminded of; wherefore have we excited amongst them enmity and hatred till the resurrection day; but God will tell them of what they have done.
O ye people of the Book! our Apostle has come to you to explain to you much of what ye had hidden of the Book, and to pardon much. There has come to you from God a light, and a perspicuous
- ↑ Various stories are told in explanation of this passage, but they are all obviously apocryphal, the angel Gabriel intervening to prevent some mischief either to the Apostle or his followers.
- ↑ That is, the text foretelling the coming of Mohammed; see Introduction.
