Jeremiah 7:22

⁶For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

²²Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the LORD’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

¹⁶For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. ¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart.

¹³But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

⁶Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.

⁸I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. ⁹I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. ¹⁰For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. ¹¹I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. ¹²If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. ¹³Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? ¹⁴Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. ¹⁵Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” ¹⁶But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, ¹⁷since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?

³³and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”