If,
however, from there you start searching once more for Yahweh your God, and if you search for him
honestly and sincerely, you will find him.
Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in
your heart.
And now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask of you? Only this: to fear Yahweh your God, to follow all his ways, to love
him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul,13to
keep the commandments and laws of Yahweh, which I am laying down for you today
for your own good.
***
16Circumcise your heart then and
be obstinate no longer;
Let these words of mine remain in your heart
and in your soul
The word is very near to you, it is in your
mouth and in your heart for you to put into practice.
Is Yahweh pleased by
burnt offerings and sacrifices
or by obedience to Yahweh's
voice? Truly, obedience is
better than sacrifice, submissiveness than the fat of rams.
May
your hearts be wholly with Yahweh our God, following his laws and keeping
his commandments
Walk before me in innocence of heart and in
honesty… do everything that I command and keep my laws and my ordinances
Devote
heart and soul to searching for Yahweh your God. Set to and build the sanctuary of Yahweh God
Know
the God of your father and serve him with an
undivided heart and willing mind; for Yahweh scrutinizes all hearts and understands
whatever plans they may devise. If you seek him, he will let you find him
My God … you examine our motives and … delight
in integrity
If my
people who bear my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my presence and
turn from their wicked ways, then I will listen from heaven and forgive their sins and restore their
country.
Listen
to me…Yahweh will be with you so long as you are with him.
If you seek him, he will let you find him
Welcome the teaching from his lips, and keep
his words close to your heart
You wanted no sacrifice or cereal offering, but you gave me an
open ear, you did not ask for burnt offering or sacrifice for sin; 7then
I said, 'Here I am, I am coming.' In the scroll of the book it is written of
me, 8my delight is to do your will; your law, my God,
is deep in my heart.
Let thanksgiving be your sacrifice to
God, fulfil the vows you make
to the Most High; 15 then if you call
to me in time of trouble I will rescue you and you will honor me.'
Sacrifice gives you no pleasure, burnt
offering you do not desire.17Sacrifice
to God is a broken spirit, a broken, contrite heart you never scorn.
I will praise God's name in song, I will extol
him by thanksgiving, 31for this will please Yahweh more than an ox, than a bullock horned
and hoofed.
In my heart I treasure your promises, to avoid
sinning against you.
Let your heart treasure
what I have to say, keep my principles and you will live; 5acquire wisdom, acquire understanding, never forget her,
never deviate from my words.
Keep your father's precept, my child,
do not spurn your mother's teaching. 21Bind them ever
to your heart, tie them round your neck.
My child, keep my words,
and treasure my precepts, 2keep my precepts and you will live, keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.
3Bind these to your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.
I love those who love me; whoever searches
eagerly for me finds me.
The sacrifice of the wicked
is abhorrent to Yahweh, dear to him is the prayer of the honest.
To do what is upright and just is more pleasing
to Yahweh than
sacrifice.
The sacrifice of the wicked is abhorrent, above all if
it is offered for bad motives.
Whoever
refuses to listen to the Law, such a one's very prayer is an abomination
Love
uprightness … be properly disposed towards the Lord and seek him in simplicity of heart
Do not parade your uprightness before the Lord
The sacrifice of an offering unjustly acquired is a
mockery; the gifts of the impious are unacceptable.
The Most High takes no pleasure in offerings from the godless, multiplying
sacrifices will not gain pardon for sin.
Offering sacrifice from the property of the poor is as bad as slaughtering
a son before his father's eyes.
Do
not try to bribe him with presents, he will not accept them, do not put your faith in wrongly motivated sacrifices
What are your endless sacrifices to
me?' says Yahweh. 'I am sick of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of calves. I take
no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. 12When
you come and present yourselves before me, who has asked you to trample through
my courts? 13Bring no more futile cereal offerings,
the smoke from them fills me with disgust. New Moons, Sabbaths, assemblies -- I
cannot endure solemnity combined with guilt. 14Your
New Moons and your meetings I utterly detest; to me they are a burden I am
tired of bearing. 15When you stretch out your hands I
turn my eyes away. You may multiply your prayers, I shall not be listening.
Your hands are covered in blood,16wash, make
yourselves clean. Take your wrong-doing out of my sight.
Cease
doing evil. 17Learn to do good, search for justice, discipline the
violent, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.
18'Come, let us talk this over,'
says Yahweh. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow;
though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you
are willing to obey
Thus
says the High and Exalted One who lives eternally and whose name is holy, 'I
live in the holy heights but I am with the contrite and humble, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of
the contrite.
'Why have we fasted, if you do not
see, why mortify ourselves if you never notice?' Look, you seek your own
pleasure on your fastdays and you exploit all your workmen;4look,
the only purpose of your fasting is to quarrel and squabble and strike
viciously with your fist. Fasting like yours today will never
make your voice heard on high.
5Is that the
sort of fast that pleases me, a day when a person inflicts pain on himself? Hanging your
head like a reed, spreading out sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call
fasting, a day acceptable to Yahweh?
6Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me: to break unjust
fetters, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to
break all yokes?
7Is it not
sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see
someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin?
8Then your
light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound
be quickly healed over. Saving justice will go
ahead of you and Yahweh's glory come behind you.
9Then you will cry for help and Yahweh will answer;
you will call and he will say,
'I am here.' If you do away with the yoke, the clenched fist and malicious
words,
10if you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of
the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkest
hour will be like noon.
Thus says Yahweh: With heaven my throne and earth my footstool, what house
could you build me, what place for me to rest, 2when all these
things were made by me and all belong to me? - declares Yahweh. But my eyes are
drawn to the person of humbled
and contrite spirit, who trembles at my word.
Yahweh says this, 'Stand at the
crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths: which was the good way?
Take it and you will find rest for yourselves. But they
have said, "We will not take it." 17I
posted look-outs on your behalf: Listen to the sound of the trumpet! But they
said, "We will not
listen." 1
8Then hear, you nations, and
know, assembly, what is going to happen to them! 19Listen, earth!
Watch, I shall bring disaster on this people: it is the fruit of the way they
think, since they have not listened to my words nor to my law, but have
rejected it. 20 What
do I care about incense imported from Sheba, or fragrant cane
from a distant country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, your sacrifices do
not please me.'
For when I brought your ancestors out
of Egypt, I said nothing to them, gave them no orders, about burnt offerings or sacrifices. 23My
one command to them was this: Listen to my voice, then I will be
your God and you shall be my people. In
everything, follow the way that I mark out for you, and you shall prosper.
When you search for me, you will find
me; when you search wholeheartedly for me,14I shall let you find me
I shall judge each of you by what that person does -- declares the Lord Yahweh.
Repent, renounce all your crimes, avoid all occasions for guilt. 31Shake
off all the crimes you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a
new spirit!
Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has
rent us and he will heal us; he has struck us and he will bind
up our wounds 2after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise
us up and we shall live in his presence.3Let us know, let us strive
to know Yahweh; that he will come is as certain as the dawn. He will come
to us like a shower, like the rain of springtime to the earth.
***
6for faithful love is what
pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.
Ephraim keeps building altars for his
sins, these very altars are themselves a sin. 12However much of my Law I
write for him, Ephraim regards it as alien to him.13They offer sacrifices
to me and eat the meat, they do not win Yahweh's favor. On the contrary, he will remember
their guilt and punish their sins
Israel, come back to Yahweh your God your guilt was the cause of your downfall. 3Provide
yourself with words and come back to Yahweh. Say to him, 'Take all guilt away
and give us what is good, instead of bulls we will dedicate to you our lips.
But now -- declares Yahweh- come back
to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning.'13Tear your
hearts and not your clothes, and come back to Yahweh your God, for he is gracious and
compassionate, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, and he relents about
inflicting disaster.
For Yahweh says this to the House of Israel: Seek
me out and you will survive, 5but do not seek out
Bethel, do not go to Gilgal
I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take
no pleasure in your solemn assemblies.22When you
bring me burnt offerings . . . your oblations, I do not accept
them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat cattle. 23Spare
me the din of your chanting, let me hear none of your strumming on lyres,
24but let justice flow like water, and uprightness like
a never-failing stream!
With what shall I enter Yahweh's
presence and bow down before God All-high? Shall I enter with burnt
offerings, with calves one year old? 7Will he be pleased with rams
by the thousand, with ten thousand streams of oil? Shall I offer my eldest son
for my wrong-doing, the child of my own body for my sin? 8'You have
already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you. Only this, to do what is
right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your God.'
Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the earth, who
obey his commands. Seek uprightness, seek humility: you may perhaps find
shelter on the Day of Yahweh's anger.
"Yahweh Sabaoth says this: Return to me -- Yahweh Sabaoth declares -- and I will return to you, says Yahweh Sabaoth.
"While you have been fasting and mourning in the fifth and seventh
months for the past seventy years, have you really been fasting for my sake? 6 And when you were eating and drinking,
were you not eating and drinking for your own sake?7 Do you not know the words which Yahweh proclaimed through the prophets in the
past, when Jerusalem was inhabited and secure, as were her
surrounding towns, and when the Negeb and the lowlands were inhabited?" …
He said, "Apply the law fairly, and show faithful love and
compassion towards one another. Do not oppress the widow and the orphan, the foreigner and the
poor, and do not secretly plan evil against one another."
Be careful not to parade your
uprightness in public to attract attention; otherwise you will lose
all reward from your Father in heaven.
2So when you give alms, do not
have it trumpeted before you; this is what the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the streets to win human admiration. In truth I tell you, they have had their
reward. 3But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what
your right is doing; 4your almsgiving
must be secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward
you.
5 And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites:
they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at
the street corners for people to see them. In truth I tell you, they have had their
reward. 6But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself
in, and so pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all
that is done in secret will reward
you.
7In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many
words they will make themselves heard.8Do
not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
When you are fasting, do not put on a
gloomy look as the hypocrites do: they go about looking unsightly to let people
know they are fasting. In truth I tell you, they have had their
reward. 17But when you fast, put scent on your head and wash your
face,18so that no one will know you are fasting except your Father who sees all that
is done in secret; and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward
you.
Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a
number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples,
'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?'12When he
heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the
sick. 13Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases
me, not sacrifice.
At that time Jesus went through the cornfields one Sabbath day. His disciples were hungry and
began to pick ears of corn and eat them. 2The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, 'Look,
your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath.' 3But
he said to them, 'Have you not read what David did when he and his followers
were hungry- 4how he went into the house of God and
they ate the loaves of the offering although neither he nor his followers were
permitted to eat them, but only the priests? 5Or again, have you not
read in the Law that on the Sabbath day the Temple priests break the Sabbath without committing any fault? 6Now
here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple.7And if you
had understood the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not
sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless.
Then Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus and said, 2'Why do your
disciples break away from the tradition of the elders? They eat without washing
their hands.' 3He answered, 'And why do you break away from the
commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said,
"Honor your father and your mother" and "Anyone who curses his
father or mother will be put to death." 5But
you say, "If anyone says to his father or mother: Anything I might have
used to help you is dedicated to God,6he is rid of his duty to
father or mother." In this way you have made God's word ineffective by
means of your tradition. See also Mark 7:1-13
Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay
your tithe of mint and dill and cummin and have neglected the weightier matters
of the Law-justice, mercy, good faith! These you should have
practiced, those not neglected. 24You blind guides, straining out
gnats and swallowing camels! See also
Luke 11:42
One of the scribes who had listened to them debating
appreciated that Jesus had given a good answer
and put a further question to him, 'Which is the first of all the
commandments?'29Jesus replied, 'This is the first:
Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, 30and
you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. 31The
second is this: You must love your neighbor as yourself. There is no
commandment greater than these.' 32The scribe said to
him, 'Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true, that he is one and there
is no other. 33To love him with all your heart, with
all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself,
this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.'34Jesus,
seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, 'You are not far from the kingdom of
God.' And after that no one dared to question him any more.
He sat down opposite the treasury and
watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in
a great deal. 42A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the
equivalent of a penny. 43Then he called his disciples
and said to them, 'In truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than all who have
contributed to the treasury; 44for they have all put
in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in everything she possessed,
all she had to live on.' See also Luke 21:1-4
Produce fruit in keeping with
repentance, and do not start telling yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell
you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. 9Yes, even now the axe is being
laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be
cut down and thrown on the fire.'
10When all the people asked him,
'What must we do, then?'11he answered, 'Anyone who
has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and anyone with something
to eat must do the same.' 12There were tax collectors, too, who came
for baptism, and these said to him, 'Master, what must we do?'13He
said to them, 'Exact no more than the appointed rate.' 14Some
soldiers asked him in their turn, 'What about us? What must we do?' He said to
them, 'No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!'
He spoke the following parable to some
people who prided themselves on being upright and despised everyone else, 10'Two
men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a
tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, "I thank you, God,
that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly
that I am not like this tax collector here. 12I fast twice
a week; I pay tithes on all I get." 13The
tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to
heaven; but he beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a
sinner." 14This man, I tell you, went home again justified; the
other did not. For everyone who raises himself up will be
humbled, but anyone who humbles himself will be raised up.'
Jesus said: My food is to do the will of
the one who sent me, and to complete his work.
Jesus said to them: If you are Abraham's
children, do as Abraham did.
I have glorified you on earth by finishing the
work that you gave me to do.
God has
no favorites, 35but that anybody of any nationality
who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Give
yourselves to God, as people brought to life from the dead, and give every part of
your bodies to God to be instruments of uprightness
Surrender yourselves to uprightness
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the
mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and
acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Lead
a life worthy of the vocation to which you were
called.
You
are light in the Lord; behave as children of light
You must always behave in a way that is worthy
of the gospel of Christ
Lead
a life worthy of the Lord, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects,
bearing fruit in every kind of good work and growing in knowledge of God
So then, as you received Jesus as Lord and Christ, now live your lives in
him, 7be rooted in him and built up on him, held firm by the faith you have been taught, and overflowing
with thanksgiving.
Live
a life worthy of God, who calls you into his
kingdom and his glory.
Let us offer God an
unending sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips of
those who acknowledge his name. 16Keep doing good works
and sharing your resources, for these are the kinds of sacrifice that please God.
Humbly welcome the Word which has been
planted in you and can save your souls. 22But you must do what the
Word tells you and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.
Pure,
unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father, is this: coming to the help
of orphans and widows in their hardships, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by
the world.
It is
always my greatest joy to hear that my children are living according to the truth.
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