Smuggler and Preacher Too
Christian Commonwealth
Isaiah 1:11-15
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? said the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams…


The letters of Robert Louis Stevenson tell an astonishing story of smuggling in the Shetlands. The revenue official had great trouble with a man known as Preaching Peter, who, whenever he returned with his spoils, sent round handbills to announce his coming, and went about the country preaching. After he had much prayed and much preached, he gave the benediction, and this was the signal for all who knew him to crowd round. "How many gallons shall I give you? How many do you want?" Such was the conversation; and so he sold his smuggled spirits and improved the people's souls while he filled his own purse. Worship and wickedness: — A famous brigand in Sicily was constantly robbing and sometimes murdering. But he would never go forth on his expeditions without first kneeling at a little shrine in his cave, where he kept an image of the Virgin.

(Christian Commonwealth.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

WEB: "What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?," says Yahweh. "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don't delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.




Sin Offensive to God
Top of Page
Top of Page