and to love Him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, which is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Parallel translations
- WEB and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with 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.”
- KJV And 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.
- NKJV And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
- NASB and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
- NLT And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”
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
The scribe agrees that wholehearted love for God and neighbor outweighs all sacrifices. It shows that the heart of the law is love, not mere ritual.
Overview
Echoing Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, the scribe affirms Jesus' summary of the greatest commandments and adds that such love surpasses burnt offerings. The prophets had said the same (Hosea 6:6; 1 Samuel 15:22): God desires obedient love over empty ceremony. This points forward to Christ, whose perfect love for the Father and for sinners fulfills the law and becomes the once-for-all sacrifice that all the offerings foreshadowed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Hos 6:6For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
- Mic 6:6–8With what shall I come before the LORD when I bow before the God on high? Should I come to Him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?
- 1 Sam 15:22But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams.
- Matt 12:7If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
- Matt 9:13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
- 1 Cor 13:1–3If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
- Amos 5:21–24“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
- Isa 1:11–17“What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
- Jer 7:21–23This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!
- Ps 50:8–15I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are ever before Me.
- Ps 50:23He who sacrifices a thank offering honors Me, and to him who rights his way, I will show the salvation of God.”
- Prov 21:3To do righteousness and justice is more desirable to the LORD than sacrifice.
- Heb 10:8In the passage above He says, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor did You delight in them” (although they are offered according to the law).
- Isa 58:5–7Is this the fast I have chosen: a day for a man to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the LORD?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Mark drives urgently to the cross, showing Jesus the Son of God as the suffering Servant who 'came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'
How Mark 12:33 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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