“And you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve him with single mind and willing heart, for the Lord searches every mind and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will abandon you forever.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools, for they do not know how to keep from doing evil.
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.
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?
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.
Therefore, O king, may my counsel be acceptable to you: atone for your sins with righteousness and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged.”
Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel, for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty and no knowledge of God in the land.
Though they offer choice sacrifices, though they eat flesh, the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.
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?
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.”
Although all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people born on the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.
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.