“As for you, my son Shelomoh, know the Elohim of your father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a pleasing life, for יהוה searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you do seek Him, He is found by you; but if you forsake Him, He rejects you forever.
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.
“Of what use to Me are your many slaughterings?” declares יהוה. “I have had enough of ascending offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats.
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loosen the tight cords of wrongness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to exempt the oppressed, and to break off every yoke?
“For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, about matters of ascending offerings or slaughterings.
“Therefore, O sovereign, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your crookednesses by showing favour to the poor – your prosperity might be extended.”
Hear the word of יהוה, you children of Yisra’ĕl, for יהוה has a case against the inhabitants of the land: “For there is no truth or loving-commitment or knowledge of Elohim in the land.
“As for My slaughterings: 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!
He has declared to you, O man, what is good. And what does יהוה require of you but to do right, and to love loving-commitment, and to walk humbly with your Elohim?
“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 ascending offerings and offerings.”
For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people who were born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Mitsrayim had not been circumcised.
Then Shemu’ĕl said, “Does יהוה delight in ascending offerings and slaughterings, as in obeying the voice of יהוה? Look, to obey is better than a slaughtering, to heed is better than the fat of rams.