7:21–23 burnt offerings . . . sacrifices. Sacrifices without the inner worship of the heart were of no interest to God; the people might as well eat the sacrifices themselves if they offered them that way. This prophetic condemnation of empty ritual is all the more remarkable because the sacrificial system revealed to Moses was still in force. Jeremiah is not alone in speaking this way; see 1 Sam. 15:23; Is. 1:11–15; Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:21–25; Mic. 6:6–8.