P1067:3, 97:5.6
Ever the burden of Micah's message was: "Shall I come before God with burnt
offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand
rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of
my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good; and what
does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with your God." And it was a great
age; these were indeed stirring times when mortal man heard, and some even believed,
such emancipating messages more than two and a half millenniums ago. And but
for the stubborn resistance of the priests, these teachers would have overthrown
the whole bloody ceremonial of the Hebrew ritual of worship.