Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.
Parallel translations
- WEB offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them: for this pleases you, you children of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh.
- KJV And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.
- NKJV Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, Proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; For this you love, You children of Israel!” Says the Lord God.
- NASB “Offer a thanksgiving offering also from that which is leavened, And proclaim voluntary offerings, make them known. For so you love to do, you sons of Israel,” Declares the Lord God.
- NLT Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving. Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,” says the Sovereign Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God mocks their showy thank offerings and freewill offerings, which they love to brag about. Their worship serves their own pride, not God.
Overview
The people delighted in performing visible acts of devotion and publicizing them. God's sarcasm ('for this pleases you') reveals that their worship was self-pleasing, not God-pleasing. They sought reputation, not repentance. Jesus likewise warned against doing religious acts to be seen by others (Matthew 6), calling instead for sincere worship in spirit and truth.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 81:12So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
- Lev 22:18–21“Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the Israelites and tell them, ‘Any man of the house of Israel or any foreign resident who presents a gift for a burnt offering to the LORD, whether to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering,
- Hos 9:10I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Shame; so they became as detestable as the thing they loved.
- Matt 23:23Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
- Lev 7:12–13If he offers it in thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with olive oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, and well-kneaded cakes of fine flour mixed with oil.
- Matt 6:2So when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward.
- Hos 9:1Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.
- Matt 15:13–14But Jesus replied, “Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by its roots.
- 2 Th 2:10–12and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.
- Matt 15:9They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”
- Deut 12:6–7To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
- Lev 23:17Bring two loaves of bread from your dwellings as a wave offering, each made from two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with leaven, as the firstfruits to the LORD.
- Rom 1:28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 4:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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