Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 6.djvu/219

Ⅳ, 150-156. disbelieve in part, and desire to take a midway course between the two :’ these are the misbelievers, and we have prepared for misbelievers shameful woe ! But those who believe in God and His apostles, and who do not make a distinction between any one of them, — to these we will give their hire, for God is forgiving and merciful !

The people of the Book will ask thee to bring down for them a book from heaven ; but they asked Moses a greater thing than that, for they said, ‘ Show us God openly;’ but the thunderbolt caught them in their injustice. Then they took the calf, after what had come to them of manifest signs; but we pardoned that, and gave Moses obvious authority. And we held over them the mountain at their compact, and said to them, ‘ Enter ye the door adoring;’ and we said to them, ‘ Transgress not on the Sabbath day,’ and we took from them a rigid compact.

But for that they broke their compact, and for their misbelief in God's signs, and for their killing the prophets undeservedly, and for their saying, ‘ Our hearts are uncircumcised,’ — nay, God hath stamped on them their misbelief, so that they cannot believe except a few, — and for their misbelief, and for their saying about Mary a mighty calumny, and for their saying, ‘ Verily, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God,’. . . but they did not kill him, and they did not crucify him, but a similitude was made for them. And verily, those who differ about him are in doubt concerning him ; they have no knowledge concerning him, but only follow an opinion. They did not kill