100 Bible Verses about Rather Than Sacrifice

1 Samuel 15:22 ESV / 17 helpful votes

And Samuel said, “Has 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 listen than the fat of rams.

Hosea 6:6 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Matthew 9:13 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 12:7 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Proverbs 21:3 ESV / 8 helpful votes

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

1 John 2:2 ESV / 6 helpful votes

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Romans 12:1 ESV / 6 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Micah 6:6-8 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Ephesians 5:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Mark 12:33 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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 whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

Amos 5:21-24 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Isaiah 1:11-17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. ...

Psalm 51:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

Psalm 51:16-17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 40:6-8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

Psalm 40:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

1 Samuel 15:22-23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And Samuel said, “Has 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 listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Exodus 19:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;

2 John 1:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

Hebrews 13:15 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Hebrews 9:26 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

John 1:29 ESV / 4 helpful votes

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Luke 11:28 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Micah 6:8 ESV / 4 helpful votes

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Jeremiah 7:22 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Jeremiah 7:22-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

Isaiah 1:11 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

Revelation 13:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

1 John 5:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 Peter 1:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

Hebrews 10:26 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

Hebrews 10:12 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

Colossians 3:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Colossians 3:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Philippians 2:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Ephesians 6:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Ephesians 5:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Romans 6:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Romans 5:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

Romans 3:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Acts 5:29 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

John 14:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John 3:16-17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 1:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Luke 9:24 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Matthew 23:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

Jeremiah 7:21-23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

Jeremiah 6:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

What use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.

1 John 4:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 3:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

1 John 2:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

1 John 2:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

1 Peter 4:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

1 Peter 2:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

1 Peter 1:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

1 Peter 1:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

1 Peter 1:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Hebrews 13:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Hebrews 13:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Hebrews 13:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ...

Hebrews 11:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Hebrews 10:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”

Hebrews 10:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

Hebrews 9:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

2 Thessalonians 1:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Philippians 2:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Philippians 2:5-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Ephesians 6:1-3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

1 Corinthians 13:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Romans 12:1-21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ...

Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 10:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 6:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Romans 6:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Romans 6:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 3:21-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ...

Romans 2:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Romans 2:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Romans 2:6-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Acts 5:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Acts 3:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

Acts 2:38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

John 15:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John 14:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Luke 22:42 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Matthew 7:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

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