In the same way He commanded offerings because of the sins of your people, and because of their idolatries, and not because He was in need of such. For He thus speaks by Amos, one of the Twelve, crying aloud:
Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord. What object is this Day of the Lord to you? And it is darkness and not light. It will be as when a man flees from the face of the lion, and the bear meets him, and he springs into his house and leans his hands on the wall, and the serpent bites him. Is not the Day of the Lord darkness and not light, and thick darkness with no illumination for them? I hate, I reject your festivals, and my nostrils shall take no pleasure in your assemblies.
Therefore if ye offer me your whole burnt offerings and your sacrifices, I will not accept them, and I will not look upon the peace offerings that you present. Remove from Me the multitude of your songs and psalms; I will not hear your instruments of music. And judgment shall roll down as water, and righteousness as a torrent that cannot be crossed. Did ye offer victims and sacrifices to Me in the wilderness, O House of Israel, saith the Lord. And ye took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of your god Raphan, the images which ye made for yourselves.
And I will remove you beyond Damascus, saith the Lord; God All-supreme is His name. Woe to them who live wantonly in Sion, and to those who trust on the hill of Samaria. They who are renowned among the rulers gathered the heads of the nations as grapes; the House of Israel have entered in for themselves. Pass over all of you unto Chalané and see, and go thence unto Hamath the great, and go down thence unto Gath of the aliens, the chief of all these kingdoms — (see) if their boundaries are more than your boundaries.
They who come unto an evil day, who draw near and lay hold of false sabbaths, who sleep upon beds of ivory and live wantonly on their mattresses, who eat lambs of their flocks, and sucking calves from the midst of their herds, who clap their hands at the voice of the instruments of music, have regarded these things as abiding and not as fleeting, who drink wine in goblets and anoint themselves with the chief ointments, and suffered not at all over the affliction of Joseph. Therefore now shall they be captives among the very first of the princes that go to a far land, and the home of evil doers shall be overthrown, and the neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim.
And again by Jeremiah: Gather together your flesh-offerings and your sacrifices, and eat, because neither did I give any command to your fathers about sacrifices or libations, in the day that I took hold of their hand to lead them out from the land of Egypt.
And again He said thus by David in the forty-ninth Psalm: The God of gods, the Lord, spake, and called the earth from the rising of the sun as far as its setting. Out of Sion is the comeliness of His beauty. God shall come openly, our God, and shall not keep silence. Fire shall burn before Him, and round about Him is a mighty tempest. He shall summon the heaven above and the earth, to judge his people. Gather together to Him His holy ones, those that ratify His covenant with sacrifices. And the heavens shall announce His righteousness, because God is judge.
Hear, O my people, and I will speak to thee, Israel, and I will solemnly protest unto thee. God, even thy God, am I. Not for thy sacrifices will I convict thee, for thy whole burnt offerings are continually before Me. I will not receive calves from thy house, nor he-goats out of thy flocks, because all the wild-beasts of the field are Mine, herds in the mountains, and cattle; I know all the birds of heaven, and the beauty of the field is with Me.
If I be hungry, I will not tell thee, for Mine is the inhabited world and the fulness of it. Am I to eat bull’s flesh, or drink goat’s blood? Sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise, and render to the Most High thy vows; and call upon Me in the day of affliction, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me. But to the sinner said God: With what object dost thou recount My judgments, and takest up My covenant with thy mouth? But thou didst hate discipline, and didst cast out My words behind thee.
If thou didst behold a thief, thou didst run with him, and thou didst set thy portion with the adulterer. Thy mouth abounded in malice, and thy tongue twisted up deceits. As thou didst sit thou didst talk against thy brother, and against the son of thy mother didst thou set a snare. These things thou didst, and I kept silence; thou didst assume that I should be like thee in iniquity. I will convict thee and set thy sins before thy face. Understand these things, ye that forget God, lest He pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you. The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me, and therein lies the way by which I will show him My salvation.
He therefore neither receives sacrifices from you, nor commanded you to do them originally as being Himself in need of them, but only because of your sins, For even the temple, which is called the temple in Jerusalem, He acknowledged as His house or court, not as Himself being in need of it, but that even by paying attention to it ye should not commit idolatry. And that this is so, Isaiah says: What kind of house did ye build Me? saith the Lord. The heaven is My throne, and the earth my footstool.