‘And now, if you diligently obey My voice, and shall guard My covenant, then you shall be My treasured possession above all the peoples – for all the earth is Mine –
Guard your steps when you go to the House of Elohim. And draw near to listen rather than to give the slaughtering of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.
which I commanded your fathers in the day when I brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, from the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and you shall do according to all that I command you, and you shall be My people, and I be your Elohim,’
‘For I earnestly warned your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Mitsrayim, until this day, rising early and warning, saying, “Obey My voice.”
“And now, make good your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of יהוה your Elohim, then יהוה shall relent concerning the evil He has pronounced against you.
“As for My offerings: they slaughter flesh and they eat. יהוה shall not accept them. Now does He remember their crookedness and punish their sins. Let them return to Mitsrayim!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you tithe the mint and the anise and the cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the Torah: the right-ruling and the compassion and the belief. These need to have been done, without neglecting the others.
“And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the being, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is more than all the burnt offerings and offerings.”
so I said, ‘The Philistines are going to come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not appeased the face of יהוה.’ So I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.”
