Amos 4:5

"“Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, and sin more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days,"

Key Reflection

This passage challenges the Israelites' superficial religious practices, suggesting that their sins are not merely tolerated but expected by God to a point of intensifying them through continued worship. It implies that true repentance and change are necessary beyond mere rituals and sacrifices.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven -But amid this boastful service, all was self-will. In little or great, the calf-worship at Bethel, or the use of leaven in the sacrifice, they did as they willed. The prophet seems to have joined purposely the fundamental change, by which Jeroboam substituted the worship of nature for its God, and a minute alteration of the ritual, to show that one and the same temper, self-will, reigned in all, dictated all they did. The use of leaven in the things sacrificed was forbidden, out of a symbolic reason, that is, not in itself, but as representing something else.

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