1st Reading for the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: Hosea 6:3-6

True and false conversion – a call for love, not sacrifice

[3] Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
His going forth is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers,
As the spring rains that water the earth.”
[4] What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
Like the dew that goes early away.
[5] Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of my mouth.
And my judgment goes forth as the light.”
[6] For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
The knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.
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Commentary:

6:1-7. The call to seek the Lord at the end of the previous oracle (5:15) is responded to in 6:1-3. We hear the people speaking, led by their representatives (the prophet, or the priests). Having suffered (vv.1-2), they are ready to repent and return to the Lord (v. 3). However, through the prophet the Lord tells them that their love should be steadfast… but it is like dew or a morning cloud: it does not survive the heat of the day. The rather puzzling reference to “Adam” in v. 7 may mean the first man, but it could also be a city that stood at the entrance to the promised land where the waters of the Jordan were stopped to let the people cross (Josh. 13:16); the meaning of the passage does not change much, whichever “Adam” is meant; the point is that transgression of the Covenant has a long history that extends back almost to the beginning; their faithfulness is as short-lived as the morning dew.

As against that, the Lord tells them where true worship lies – in steadfast love and “knowledge of God” (v. 6). The first words of this verse have had a considerable impact on Christian tradition, because they get to the heart of what religion is all about, and because our Lord quotes them more than once (cf. Mt 9:13; 12:7) to underscore his teaching that God judges not to condemn but to save:“For their own good, God demanded of the Israelites not sacrifices and holocausts, but faith, obedience and righteousness. He revealed his will through the words of the prophet Hosea: I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hos 6:6). The Lord gives further advice, saying: and if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless (Mt 12:7); and thus bear witness on behalf of the prophets, who preached the truth, against all those who threw their ignorance in the faces of God’s servants” (St. Irenaeus, Adversus haerseses, 4, 17, 4).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.