For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
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Hosea 6:4-8
Tyndale Open Study Notes (CC BY-SA 4.0).
6:6 In one of Hosea’s key verses, God names the most important qualities that should characterize the Israelites’ covenant lives with him. First, the Lord wants his people to show love more than he wants sacrifices. Love (Hebrew khesed) includes faithfulness (see 4:1; 6:4). God is always faithful (Ps 136), and he requires the same of his people. Second, the Lord wants Israel to know him more than he wants burnt offerings. Knowing God is much more than simply knowing facts about God (see “Knowing God” Theme Note). An intimate personal relationship with God is characterized by complete trust and integrity.
Other Bible passages linked to this one, most cited first.
But 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.
But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
To 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.
Authorship: the book itself or Christian tradition. Approximate dates, as in Carson and Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, and Longman and Dillard, An Introduction to the Old Testament.