Dialogue with Trypho

Justin: And that you may learn that it was for the sins of your own nation, and for their idolatries and not because there was any necessity for such sacrifices, that they were likewise enjoined, listen to the manner in which He speaks of these by Amos, one of the twelve, saying: 'Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is this day of the Lord for you? It is darkness and not light, as when a man flees from the face of a lion, and a bear meets him; and he goes into his house, and leans his hands against the wall, and the serpent bites him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, even very dark, and no brightness in it? I have hated, I have despised your feast-days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies: wherefore, though you offer Me your burnt-offerings and sacrifices, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your presence. Take away from Me the multitude of your songs and psalms; I will not hear your instruments. But let judgment be rolled down as water, and righteousness as an impassable torrent.

Have you offered unto Me victims and sacrifices in the wilderness, O house of Israel? Says the Lord. And have you taken up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raphan, the figures which you made for yourselves? And I will carry you away beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the Almighty God. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria: those who are named among the chiefs have plucked away the first-fruits of the nations: the house of Israel have entered for themselves.

Pass all of you unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go unto Hamath the great, and go down thence to Gath of the strangers, the noblest of all these kingdoms, if their boundaries are greater than your boundaries. You who come to the evil day, who are approaching, and who hold to false Sabbaths; who lie on beds of ivory, and are at ease upon their couches; who eat the lambs out of the flock, and the sucking calves out of the midst of the herd; who applaud at the sound of the musical instruments; they reckon them as stable, and not as fleeting, who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

Wherefore now they shall be captives, among the first of the nobles who are carried away; and the house of evil-doers shall be removed, and the neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim.' And again by Jeremiah: 'Collect your flesh, and sacrifices, and eat: for concerning neither sacrifices nor libations did I command your fathers in the day in which I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.' And again by David, in the forty-ninth Psalm, He thus said: 'The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and called the earth, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

Out of Zion is the perfection of His beauty. God, even our God, shall come openly, and shall not keep silence. Fire shall burn before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Assemble to Him His saints; those that have made a covenant with Him by sacrifices. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God is judge. Hear, O My people, and I will speak to you; O Israel, and I will testify to you, I am God, even your God.

I will not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt-offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullocks out of your house, nor he-goats out of your folds: for all the beasts of the field are Mine, the herds and the oxen on the mountains. I know all the fowls of the heavens, and the beauty of the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows unto the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.

But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare My statutes, and to take My covenant into your mouth? But you have hated instruction, and cast My words behind you. When you saw a thief, you consented with him; and hast been partaker with the adulterer. Your mouth has framed evil, and your tongue has enfolded deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I would be like yourself in wickedness.

I will reprove you, and set your sins in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me; and there is the way in which I shall show him My salvation.' Accordingly He neither takes sacrifices from you nor commanded them at first to be offered because they are needful to Him, but because of your sins. For indeed the temple, which is called the temple in Jerusalem, He admitted to be His house or court, not as though He needed it, but in order that you, in this view of it, giving yourselves to Him, might not worship idols. And that this is so, Isaiah says: 'What house have you built Me? Says the Lord. Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool.'