Deuteronomy 12:7

12:7 Both you and your families ¹  must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he ²  has blessed you.

Deuteronomy 26:14

26:14 I have not eaten anything when I was in mourning, or removed any of it while ceremonially unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; ³  I have obeyed you ⁴  and have done everything you have commanded me.

Deuteronomy 26:1

Presentation of the First Fruits

26:1 When ⁵  you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it,

Deuteronomy 1:7-8

1:7 Get up now, ⁶  resume your journey, heading for ⁷  the Amorite hill country, to all its areas ⁸  including the arid country, ⁹  the highlands, the Shephelah, ¹⁰  the Negev, ¹¹  and the coastal plain – all of Canaan and Lebanon as far as the Great River, that is, the Euphrates. 1:8 Look! I have already given the land to you. ¹²  Go, occupy the territory that I, ¹³  the Lord, promised ¹⁴  to give to your ancestors ¹⁵  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants.” ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 1:11

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ¹⁷ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ¹⁸  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ²⁰ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 6:20

6:20 I take no delight ²²  when they offer up to me ²³ 

frankincense that comes from Sheba

or sweet-smelling cane imported from a faraway land.

I cannot accept the burnt offerings they bring me.

I get no pleasure from the sacrifices they offer to me.’ ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 14:12

14:12 Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. ²⁵  Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.” ²⁶ 

Hosea 9:4

9:4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord;

they will not please him with their sacrifices.

Their sacrifices will be like bread eaten while in mourning;

all those who eat them will make themselves ritually unclean.

For their bread will be only to satisfy their appetite;

it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

Malachi 1:10

1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ²⁷  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

Malachi 1:13

1:13 You also say, ‘How tiresome it is.’ You turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and instead bring what is stolen, lame, or sick. You bring these things for an offering! Should I accept this from you?” ²⁸  asks the Lord.

Malachi 2:13

2:13 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears ²⁹  as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

Philippians 4:4

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!

[12:7]  ¹ tn Heb “and your houses,” referring to entire households. The pronouns “you” and “your” are plural in the Hebrew text.

[12:7]  ² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 12:5.

[26:14]  ³ sn These practices suggest overtones of pagan ritual, all of which the confessor denies having undertaken. In Canaan they were connected with fertility practices associated with harvest time. See E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC), 335-36.

[26:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord my God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

[26:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and it will come to pass that.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “turn”; NAB “Leave here”; NIV, TEV “Break camp.”

[1:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “go (to).”

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “its dwelling places.”

[1:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Arabah” (so ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lowlands” (so TEV) or “steppes”; NIV, CEV, NLT “the western foothills.”

[1:7]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew term Negev means literally “desert” or “south” (so KJV, ASV). It refers to the area south of Beer Sheba and generally west of the Arabah Valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.

[1:8]  ¹² tn Heb “I have placed before you the land.”

[1:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord.” Since the Lord is speaking, it is preferable for clarity to supply the first person pronoun in the translation.

[1:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “swore” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This refers to God’s promise, made by solemn oath, to give the patriarchs the land.

[1:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 11, 21, 35).

[1:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “their seed after them.”

[1:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Why to me the multitude of your sacrifices?” The sarcastic rhetorical question suggests that their many sacrifices are of no importance to the Lord. This phrase answers the possible objection that an Israelite could raise in response to God’s indictment: “But we are offering the sacrifices you commanded!”

[1:11]  ¹⁸ tn The verb שָׂבַע (sava’, “be satisfied, full”) is often used of eating and/or drinking one’s fill. See BDB 959 s.v. שָׂבַע. Here sacrifices are viewed, in typical ancient Near Eastern fashion, as food for the deity. God here declares that he has eaten and drunk, as it were, his fill.

[1:11]  ¹⁹ sn In the chiastic structure of the verse, the verbs at the beginning and end highlight God’s displeasure, while the heaping up of references to animals, fat, and blood in the middle lines hints at why God wants no more of their sacrifices. They have, as it were, piled the food on his table and he needs no more.

[1:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ²¹ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[6:20]  ²² tn Heb “To what purpose is it to me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[6:20]  ²³ tn The words “when they offer up to me” are not in the text but are implicit from the following context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Your burnt offerings are not acceptable and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.” “The shift from “your” to “their” is an example of the figure of speech (apostrophe) where the speaker turns from talking about someone to addressing him/her directly. Though common in Hebrew style, it is not common in English. The shift to the third person in the translation is an accommodation to English style.

[14:12]  ²⁵ sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.

[14:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”

[1:10]  ²⁷ sn The rhetorical language suggests that as long as the priesthood and people remain disobedient, the temple doors may as well be closed because God is not “at home” to receive them or their worship there.

[1:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “from your hand,” a metonymy of part (the hand) for whole (the person).

[2:13]  ²⁹ sn You cover the altar of the Lord with tears. These tears are the false tears of hypocrisy, not genuine tears of repentance. The people weep because the Lord will not hear them, not because of their sin.