And when We made a covenant with the children of Israel: “You shall not worship any other than God; and be good to parents and the near of kin; and to orphans and to the needy; and speak well to men; and observe the prayer and pay the alms” then you turned away; all but a few of you rejecting. And when We made a covenant with you: “Shed no blood among you nor turn out your own people from your homes.” Then you confirmed it and you bore witness. Then there you are killing one another and expelling a party of you from their habitations conspiring against them in sin and enmity and if they come to you as captives you ransom them; yet their expulsion was forbidden you. What do you believe in part of the Book and disbelieve in partḍ And if they come to you as captives you ransom them that is “Just as you protect their rights by ransoming them so must you restrain your hands from them and forswear expelling them from their homelands. When you uphold some of what has been made obligatory for you what keeps you from doing the rest of what you have been commanded to doḍ Do you not know that whoever picks and chooses in what he has been commanded so that he believes in some parts and disbelieves in others has the reward for his deeds nullified because of what he has neglectedḍ” What shall be the requital of those of you who do that but degrada- tion in the life of this world; and on the Day of Resurrection to be returned to the most terrible of chastisementḍ And God is not heedless of what you do. That is they thought that what they did would benefit them but in the hereafter it will be disclosed to them that everything that they did when it was combined with what was damaging and stripped of sincerity and devotion was not accepted from them. The captives are of different types. The rescue of the captive drowning in the sea of whim hawā is to be directed to guidance. The ransom of the captive who remains in the hands of whisperings wasāwis is to show him the way to certainty by the glimmers of proofs.
