Offer leavened bread as a thanksgiving sacrifice, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings, for that is what you Israelites love to do! This is the declaration of the Lord God.
I discovered Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your ancestors like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, consecrated themselves to Shame, , and became abhorrent, like the thing they loved.
So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.
Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do, for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God. You love the wages of a prostitute on every grain threshing-floor.
‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, and yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law #– #justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These things should have been done without neglecting the others.
Bring two loaves of bread from your settlements as a presentation offering, each of them made from four litres of fine flour, baked with yeast, as firstfruits to the Lord.
Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.
‘What are all your sacrifices to me? ’ asks the Lord. ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats.