Like a Bird

⁷ “Listen, my people, I will now speak; Israel, I will now testify against you. I am God—your God! ⁸ I’m not punishing you for your sacrifices or for your entirely burned offerings, which are always before me. ⁹ I won’t accept bulls from your house or goats from your corrals ¹⁰ because every forest animal already belongs to me, as do the cattle on a thousand hills. ¹¹ I know every mountain bird; even the insects in the fields are mine. ¹² Even if I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you because the whole world and everything in it already belong to me. ¹³ Do I eat bulls’ meat? Do I drink goats’ blood? ¹⁴ Offer God a sacrifice of thanksgiving! Fulfill the promisesyou made to the Most High! ¹⁵ Cry out to me whenever you are in trouble; I will deliver you, then you will honor me.”