Chapter 2: Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verses 40-46

Translation:

Children of Israel, remember the favours I have bestowed upon you. Keep your covenant, and I will be true to Mine. Me you must fear. Have faith in My revelations, which confirm your Scriptures, and do not be the first to deny them. Do not sell My revelations for a paltry price; fear Me. Do not confound truth with falsehood, nor knowingly hide the truth. Attend to your prayers, pay the poor-due, and bow down with those that bow down. Would you enjoin righteousness on others and forget it yourselves? Yet you read the Scriptures. Have you no sense? Fortify yourselves with patience and prayer. This may indeed be an exacting discipline, but not to the devout, who know that they will meet their Lord and that to Him they will return.

Tafsir (Commentary):

The greatest favour that God bestows upon a people is to send His Prophet to them, thus opening for them the road to eternal salvation. Prior to the times of the Prophet Muhammad—the last of the Prophets—this favour was the privilege of the Children of Israel. Soon, however, their religion ceased to be a conscious discovery of their own, and deteriorated into a set of rituals passed on from one generation to the next. With the coming of the Prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace, the reality came to light. Those who still had a feeling for truth recognized the veracity of his prophethood and followed him. But those for whom religion had become a hereditary tradition did not recognize the truth when they heard it; they rejected it and turned against the Prophet.

In the face of clear prophecies of the coming of the Arab Prophet in the Torah, it was not difficult for the Jews to recognize the truth of his Prophethood and believe in him; but belief in him was not in their worldly interests. An ecclesiastical structure had developed over hundreds of years, in which Jews held pride of place. People looked to them, the successors of saints and prophets, for spiritual leadership. People paid tribute and presented offerings to them all the year round. It appeared to them that if they accepted the Arab Prophet, their privileged religious position would come to an end; their whole profit-structure would be demolished.

As the Jews were considered representatives of revealed religion in the Arab world, people used to ask them about the Prophet Muhammad. They would reply in an innocuous manner, but the substance of their answer would be such as would turn people away from the Prophet and his mission. They used to preach to people, exhorting them to follow the truth and live their lives according to it; in practice, however, they failed to believe when their turn came to do so.