75۞ أَفَتَطمَعونَ أَن يُؤمِنوا لَكُم وَقَد كانَ فَريقٌ مِنهُم يَسمَعونَ كَلامَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يُحَرِّفونَهُ مِن بَعدِ ما عَقَلوهُ وَهُم يَعلَمونَMuhammad AsadCAN YOU, then, hope that they will believe in what you are preaching1 - seeing that a good many of them were wont to listen to the word of God and then, after having understood it, to pervert it knowingly?2Here the Muslims are addressed. In the early period of Islam - and especially after their exodus to Medina, where many Jews were then living - the Muslims expected that the Jews, with their monotheistic beliefs, would be the first to rally to the message of the Qur'an: a hope that was disappointed because the Jews regarded their own religion as a kind of national heritage reserved to the children of Israel alone, and did not believe in the necessity - or possibility - of a new revelation.Cf. Jeremiah xxiii, 26 - "Ye have perverted the words of the living God".