Mark 12:33
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
33 and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”(A)
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Hosea 6:6
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6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.(A)
Micah 6:6-8
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What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”(A)
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?(B)
1 Samuel 15:22
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obedience to the voice of the Lord?
Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice
and to heed than the fat of rams.(A)
Matthew 12:7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.(A)
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Matthew 9:13
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13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”(A)
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1 Corinthians 13:1-3
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The Gift of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.(A) 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.(B)
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- 13.3 Other ancient authorities read body to be burned
Amos 5:21-24
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21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.(A)
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.(B)
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.(C)
Isaiah 1:11-17
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11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls
or of lambs or of goats.(A)
12 When you come to appear before me,[a]
who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more!(B)
13 Bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—
I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.(C)
14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.(D)
15 When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.(E)
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;(F)
17 learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.(G)
Footnotes
- 1.12 Or see my face
Psalm 50:23
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;
to those who go the right way,[a]
I will show the salvation of God.”
Footnotes
- 50.23 Heb who set a way
Psalm 50:8-15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.(A)
9 I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.(B)
10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.(C)
11 I know all the birds of the air,[a]
and all that moves in the field is mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all that is in it is mine.(D)
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,[b]
and pay your vows to the Most High.(E)
15 Call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”(F)
Hebrews 10:8
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8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),
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Jeremiah 7:21-23
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21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.(A) 22 For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.(B) 23 But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”(C)
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Isaiah 58:5-7
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5 Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?(A)
6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?(B)
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?(C)
Proverbs 21:3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 To do righteousness and justice
is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.(A)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.