Maleakhi 2:13

2:13 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears ¹  as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

Yesaya 1:12

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ² 

Yesaya 57:6

57:6 Among the smooth stones of the stream are the idols you love;

they, they are the object of your devotion. ³ 

You pour out liquid offerings to them,

you make an offering.

Because of these things I will seek vengeance. ⁴ 

Yeremia 7:9-11

7:9 You steal. ⁵  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ⁶  other gods whom you have not previously known. 7:10 Then you come and stand in my presence in this temple I have claimed as my own ⁷  and say, “We are safe!” You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins! ⁸  7:11 Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own ⁹  is to be a hideout for robbers? ¹⁰  You had better take note! ¹¹  I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

Yeremia 7:21-24

7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, ¹²  “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹³  says: ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too! ¹⁴  7:22 Consider this: ¹⁵  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 7:23 I also explicitly commanded them: ¹⁶  “Obey me. If you do, I ¹⁷  will be your God and you will be my people. Live exactly the way I tell you ¹⁸  and things will go well with you.” 7:24 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better. ¹⁹ 

Amos 5:21-23

5:21 “I absolutely despise ²⁰  your festivals!

I get no pleasure ²¹  from your religious assemblies!

5:22 Even if you offer me burnt and grain offerings, ²²  I will not be satisfied;

I will not look with favor on your peace offerings of fattened calves. ²³ 

5:23 Take away from me your ²⁴  noisy songs;

I don’t want to hear the music of your stringed instruments. ²⁵ 

Zakharia 7:5-6

7:5 “Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh ²⁶  months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me – for me, indeed? 7:6 And now when you eat and drink, are you not doing so for yourselves?’”

Matius 6:1-2

Pure-hearted Giving

6:1 “Be ²⁷  careful not to display your righteousness merely to be seen by people. ²⁸  Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven. 6:2 Thus whenever you do charitable giving, ²⁹  do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues ³⁰  and on streets so that people will praise them. I tell you the truth, ³¹  they have their reward.

Matius 6:5

Private Prayer

6:5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues ³²  and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.

Matius 6:16

Proper Fasting

6:16 “When ³³  you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive ³⁴  so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, ³⁵  they have their reward.

[2:13]  ¹ sn You cover the altar of the Lord with tears. These tears are the false tears of hypocrisy, not genuine tears of repentance. The people weep because the Lord will not hear them, not because of their sin.

[1:12]  ² tn Heb “When you come to appear before me, who requires this from your hand, trampling of my courtyards?” The rhetorical question sarcastically makes the point that God does not require this parade of livestock. The verb “trample” probably refers to the eager worshipers and their sacrificial animals walking around in the temple area.

[57:6]  ³ tn Heb “among the smooth stones of the stream [is] your portion, they, they [are] your lot.” The next line indicates idols are in view.

[57:6]  ⁴ tn The text reads literally, “Because of these am I relenting?” If the prefixed interrogative particle is retained at the beginning of the sentence, then the question would be rhetorical, with the Niphal of נָחָם (nakham) probably being used in the sense of “relent, change one’s mind.” One could translate: “Because of these things, how can I relent?” However, the initial letter he may be dittographic (note the final he [ה] on the preceding word). In this case one may understand the verb in the sense of “console oneself, seek vengeance,” as in 1:24.

[7:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.

[7:10]  ⁸ tn Or “‘We are safe!’ – safe, you think, to go on doing all those hateful things.” Verses 9-10 are all one long sentence in the Hebrew text. It has been broken up for English stylistic reasons. Somewhat literally it reads “Will you steal…then come and stand…and say, ‘We are safe’ so as to/in order to do…” The Hebrew of v. 9 has a series of infinitives which emphasize the bare action of the verb without the idea of time or agent. The effect is to place a kind of staccato like emphasis on the multitude of their sins all of which are violations of one of the Ten Commandments. The final clause in v. 8 expresses purpose or result (probably result) through another infinitive. This long sentence is introduced by a marker (ה interrogative in Hebrew) introducing a rhetorical question in which God expresses his incredulity that they could do these sins, come into the temple and claim the safety of his protection, and then go right back out and commit the same sins. J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 52) catches the force nicely: “What? You think you can steal, murder…and then come and stand…and say, ‘We are safe…’ just so that you can go right on…”

[7:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.

[7:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Is this house…a den/cave of robbers in your eyes?”

[7:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Behold!”

[7:21]  ¹² tn The words “The Lord said to the people of Judah” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift in addressee between vv. 16-20 and vv. 21-26.

[7:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[7:21]  sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3.

[7:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. Cf. GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”

[7:21]  sn All of the burnt offering, including the meat, was to be consumed on the altar (e.g., Lev 1:6-9). The meat of the other sacrifices could be eaten by the priest who offered the sacrifice and the person who brought it (e.g., Lev 7:16-18, 32). Since, however, the people of Judah were making a mockery of the sacrificial system by offering sacrifices while disobeying the law, the Lord rejected the sacrifices (cf. 6:20). Since they were violating the moral law they might as well go ahead and violate the cultic law by eating the meat dedicated to God because he rejected it anyway.

[7:22]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[7:23]  ¹⁶ tn Verses 22-23a read in Hebrew, “I did not speak with your ancestors and I did not command them when I brought them out of Egypt about words/matters concerning burnt offering and sacrifice, but I commanded them this word:” Some modern commentators have explained this passage as an evidence for the lateness of the Pentateuchal instruction regarding sacrifice or a denial that sacrifice was practiced during the period of the wilderness wandering. However, it is better explained as an example of what R. de Vaux calls a dialectical negative, i.e., “not so much this as that” or “not this without that” (Ancient Israel, 454-56). For other examples of this same argument see Isa 1:10-17; Hos 6:4-6; Amos 5:21-25.

[7:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Obey me and I will be.” The translation is equivalent syntactically but brings out the emphasis in the command.

[7:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Walk in all the way that I command you.”

[7:24]  ¹⁹ tn Or “They went backward and not forward”; Heb “They were to the backward and not to the forward.” The two phrases used here appear nowhere else in the Bible and the latter preposition plus adverb elsewhere is used temporally meaning “formerly” or “previously.” The translation follows the proposal of J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 57. Another option is “they turned their backs to me, not their faces,” understanding the line as a variant of a line in 2:27.

[5:21]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I hate”; “I despise.”

[5:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will not smell.” These verses are full of vivid descriptions of the Lord’s total rejection of Israelite worship. In the first half of this verse two verbs are used together for emphasis. Here the verb alludes to the sense of smell, a fitting observation since offerings would have been burned on the altar ideally to provide a sweet aroma to God (see, e.g., Lev 1:9, 13, 17; Num 29:36). Other senses that are mentioned include sight and hearing in vv. 22-23.

[5:22]  ²² tn Heb “burnt offerings and your grain offerings.”

[5:22]  ²³ tn Heb “Peace offering[s], your fattened calves, I will not look at.”

[5:23]  ²⁴ tn In this verse the second person suffixes are singular and not plural like they are in vv. 21-22 and vv. 25-27. Some have suggested that perhaps a specific individual or group within the nation is in view.

[5:23]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew word probably refers to “harps” (NASB, NIV, NRSV) or “lutes” (NEB).

[7:5]  ²⁶ tn The seventh month apparently refers to the anniversary of the assassination of Gedaliah, governor of Judah (Jer 40:13-14; 41:1), in approximately 581 b.c.

[6:1]  ²⁷ tc ‡ Several mss (א L Z Θ Ë¹ 33 892 1241 1424 al) have δέ (de, “but, now”) at the beginning of this verse; the reading without δέ is supported by B D W 0250 ˹³ Ï lat. A decision is difficult, but apparently the conjunction was added by later scribes to indicate a transition in the thought-flow of the Sermon on the Mount. NA²⁷ has δέ in brackets, indicating reservations about its authenticity.

[6:1]  ²⁸ tn Grk “before people in order to be seen by them.”

[6:2]  ²⁹ tn Grk “give alms,” but this term is not in common use today. The giving of alms was highly regarded in the ancient world (Deut 15:7-11).

[6:2]  ³⁰ sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

[6:2]  ³¹ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[6:5]  ³² sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

[6:16]  ³³ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[6:16]  ³⁴ tn Here the term “disfigure” used in a number of translations was not used because it could convey to the modern reader the notion of mutilation. L&N 79.17 states, “‘to make unsightly, to disfigure, to make ugly.’ ἀφανίζουσιν γὰρ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν ‘for they make their faces unsightly’ Mt 6:16.”

[6:16]  ³⁵ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”