﴿ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَوَلَّوْا۟ قَوْمًا غَضِبَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ قَدْ يَئِسُوا۟ مِنَ ٱلْءَاخِرَةِ كَمَا يَئِسَ ٱلْكُفَّارُ مِنْ أَصْحَٰبِ ٱلْقُبُورِ ﴾

“O YOU who have attained to faith! Be not friends with people whom God has condemned! They [who would befriend them] are indeed bereft of all hope of a life to come - just as those deniers of the truth are bereft of all hope of [ever again seeing] those who are [now] in their graves.”

The People of the Book who accept the revealed scriptures, but who are backsliders, and those who are not believers are on the same level as far as the Hereafter is concerned. Those who deny the truth do not expect any human being to be resurrected from his grave. The same is true of those People of the Book who, after embracing Faith have become forgetful of their religious duties and suffer from insensitivity. In spite of their verbal acceptance of the Hereafter, their practical life assumes the same pattern as that of those who deny the truth.