1 Samuel 15:22

Samuel declares that obedience to God is better than sacrifice. This is the chapter's central truth: God desires a heart that obeys over ritual offerings.

Cross-references · 20

• Hos 6:6For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
• Ps 51:16–17For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
• Prov 21:3To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
• Amos 5:21–24I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
• Mark 12:33And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
• Matt 9:13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
• Mic 6:6–8Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
• Jer 7:22–23For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
• Ps 40:6–8Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
• Eccl 5:1Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
• Isa 1:11–17To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
• Matt 12:7But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
• Heb 10:4–10For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
• Matt 23:23Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
• Ps 50:8–9I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
• Matt 5:24Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
• Jer 26:13Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you.
• Exod 19:5Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
• Jer 11:7For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.
• Jer 11:4Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

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