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To do what is right and just(A)
    is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. 21:3 External rites or sacrifices do not please God unless accompanied by internal worship and right moral conduct; cf. 15:8; 21:27; Is 1:11–15; Am 5:22; Mal 1:12.

For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice,
    and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.(A)

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21 [a](A)I hate, I despise your feasts,
    I take no pleasure in your solemnities.
22 Even though you bring me your burnt offerings and grain offerings
    I will not accept them;
Your stall-fed communion offerings,
    I will not look upon them.
23 Take away from me
    your noisy songs;
The melodies of your harps,
    I will not listen to them.
24 Rather let justice surge like waters,
    and righteousness like an unfailing stream.
25 (B)Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings
    for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 5:21–27 The prophet does not condemn cultic activity as such but rather the people’s attempt to offer worship with hands unclean from oppression of their fellow Israelites (cf. Ps 15:2–5; 24:3–4). But worship from those who disregard justice and righteousness (v. 24) is never acceptable to the God of Israel. Through the Sinai covenant the love of God and the love of neighbor are inextricably bound together.

For the teraphim[a] have spoken nonsense,(A)
    the diviners have seen false visions;
Deceitful dreams they have told,
    empty comfort they have offered.
This is why they wandered like sheep,
    wretched, for they have no shepherd.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 10:2 Teraphim: household idols or cult objects (see Gn 31:19, 30–35; Jgs 17:5; 1 Sm 19:11–17), or ancestor statuettes (see 2 Kgs 23:24; Hos 3:4).

13 Go and learn the meaning of the words,(A) ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

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Footnotes

  1. 9:13 Go and learn…not sacrifice: Matthew adds the prophetic statement of Hos 6:6 to the Marcan account (see also Mt 12:7). If mercy is superior to the temple sacrifices, how much more to the laws of ritual impurity.

[a]If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’(A) you would not have condemned these innocent men.

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Footnotes

  1. 12:7 See note on Mt 9:13.

Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second.(A)

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