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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.
- Lev 22:18–21“Speak to Aaron, and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘Whoever is of the house of Israel, or of the foreigners in Israel, who offers his offering, whether it is any of their vows, or any of their freewill offerings, which they offer to Yahweh for a burnt offering;
- Hos 9:10I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.
- Matt 23:23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.
- Lev 7:12–13If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mixed with oil.
- Matt 6:2Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
- Hos 9:1Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.
- Matt 15:13–14But he answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted.
- 2 Th 2:10–12and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
- Matt 15:9And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’”
- Deut 12:6–7There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.
- Lev 23:17You shall bring out of your habitations two loaves of bread for a wave offering made of two tenths of an ephah of fine flour. They shall be baked with yeast, for first fruits to Yahweh.
- Rom 1:28Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
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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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