a Bulaq edition of the Sunan (2/151).

As for the supporting reports for this hadith, they are narrated from a number of the Companions in varying wordings. Here are some of them:

“Learn the Quran and ask Allah for Paradise through it, before people learn it in order to seek worldly gain through it. For the Quran is learned by three types of people: a man who boasts of it, a man who uses it to earn a living, and a man who recites it for Allah’s sake.”

258 — “Learn the Quran and ask Allah for Paradise through it, before people learn it in order to seek worldly gain through it. For the Quran is learned by three types of people: a man who boasts of it, a man who uses it to earn a living, and a man who recites it for Allah’s sake.”

Ibn Nasr narrated it in Qiyam al-Layl (p. 74), through Ibn Lahi‘ah, from Musa ibn Wardan, from Abu al-Haytham, from Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri, who heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say this.

I say: This chain is weak because of Ibn Lahi‘ah, for he had poor retention. However, he is not alone in narrating it, as will follow; thus, the hadith is sound. Abu al-Haytham’s name was Sulayman ibn ‘Amr al-‘Atuwari al-Misri.

In al-Fath (9/82), al-Hafiz attributed this hadith, on the authority of Abu Sa‘id, to Abu ‘Ubayd in Fada’il al-Quran, and stated that al-Hakim authenticated it; al-Hafiz endorsed his judgment. I have not presently found it in al-Mustadrak, so perhaps it was through a route other than that of Ibn Lahi‘ah.

It has another route recorded by al-Bukhari in Khalq Af‘al al-‘Ibad (p. 96), al-Hakim (4/547), Ahmad (3/38–39), and Ibn Abi Hatim—as cited in Tafsir Ibn Kathir (3/128)—from Bashir ibn Abi ‘Amr al-Khawlani, who reported that al-Walid ibn Qays al-Tujibi told him that he heard Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri say: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say:

“There will come, after sixty years, a people who neglect the prayer and follow their desires, and they will meet with evil. Then there will be people who recite the Quran, but it does not go beyond their collarbones. The Quran is recited by three types: a believer”