"Hear the word of the Lord you rulers of Sodom!  Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!  What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats."  1: 10-11.
 

"Take courage, my people, O memorial of Israel!  It was not for destruction that you were sold to the nations, but you were handed over to your enemies because you angered God.  For you provoked him who made you by sacrificing to demons and not to God."  4: 5-7.

"He who prepared the earth for all time filled it with four-footed creatures."  3: 32.

The Commentary on Hosea

"Atonement will be made for the land more effectively than by the flesh of whole burnt offerings and the fat of sacrifices. The offering of the lips will be in justice like the pleasing quality of righteousness, and perfect conduct like a free-will gift of an acceptable offering."

    Hosea, like the other late prophets, sees the necessity of another vegetarian covenant, a restoration of the original vegetarian covenant of "Genesis," a covenant of peace for all creation.

"I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, and birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy."  2: l8-l9.

  In the following scripture Hosea portrays God as condemning the inhabitants of Israel for their sins against each other and the rest of animal creation.)
 
"...for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away."  4:3.

Hosea constantly condemns the animal sacrifices.

 "...they have left their God to play the harlot.  They sacrifice on the mountains and make offerings upon the hills." 4: l2-l3.

"With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him."  5:6.

"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings." 6:6.

"They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the Lord has no delight in them." 8: l3.

    The commentary on Hosea plainly reveals that the Hebrews have fallen from the covenant of Genesis 1: 29-30.

"So now I am going to block her passage with thorns, her paths she cannot find..." 2: 6.  Here is a reference to the thorns of the Eden after the Fall, an image that was used by a number of the late prophets.  "She was not aware that it was I who had given her the grain, the wine, the oil, and the silver that I multiplied, and the gold they made into Baal." 2: 8. p. 214 Wise, Abegg, Cook, Dead Sea Scrolls.

 "This meaning is that they ate and were satisfied and forgot God who gives them the blessings, because they left behind His commandments that He had sent them through His servants, the prophets.  Instead they listened to those who deceived them.  They honored them and revered them in their blindness as if they were gods."

  "So I will again take away my grain in its time, my wine in its season. I will withdraw my wool and my flax from covering her nakedness.  Now I am uncovering her infamy in front of her lovers.  No one can rescue her from my power." 2: 9-10.  "I will go back to my place until they admit guilt and seek my presence.  When it goes badly for them they seek Me."

5: 15. This means that God will turn His face from them....and they did not listen...  "They, like Adam, broke the covenant."  6:7  This means that they abandoned God and followed the laws of the Gentiles...
 

From  "A Sermon on the Flood,"

 "So he decked out the mountains with food, heaping up sustenance upon them satisfying everyone with succulent fruit.  "All who do my will may eat and be satisfied," says the Lord, Then shall they bless My holy name." "But thereafter thy did what I regard as evil, says the Lord, "And they rebelled against God in following their own designs." p. 330, Dead Sea Scrolls

   "So the Lord judged them according to all their practices, according to the designs arising from their evil hearts. He thundered against them in His might, so that the very foundations of the earth were shaken.  Water burst forth from the depths, all the windows of heaven were thrown open; the depths poured out their awful waters, the windows of heaven emptied themselves of their rain.  So were they destroyed by the flood, every one of them perishing in the water--for they had disobeyed the commandments of the Lord."

   Chapter 7 shows the mischief on earth, the shedding of blood.

And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and 6 fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones. 7: 5

    Chapter 8 of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch is a key chapter for understanding the religious sense that pervaded the pure remnant of people in ancient times, and that pervades some renunciate groups, and back to nature groups, today. They understood that to alter creation in any way was to sin against the Creator.

1Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered.

2Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways.

   Chapter 9, in context with the above passages, gives us a summary of why the Deluge was brought about.

5You have seen what Azazyel has done, how he has taught every species of iniquity upon earth, and has disclosed to the world all the secret things which are done in the heavens.

9Thus has the whole earth been filled with blood and with iniquity.

From Chapter 10 of the Book of Enoch

6Again the Lord said to Raphael, Bind Azazyel hand and foot; cast him into darkness; and opening the desert which is in Dudael, cast him in there.
7Throw upon him hurled and pointed stones, covering him with darkness;

16Then shall they be taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments; and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever.

17Immediately after this shall he, (14) together with them, burn and perish; they shall be bound until the consummation of many generations.

   Thus we see here the wisdom of Isaias who denounced those sacrificing animals as parallel to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who deserved to be destroyed. Isaias saw through the homophobia that made homosexuals the scapegoats for the destruction.  The parallel condemnation and scapegoating of homosexuals in the New Testament and Quran may be regarded as typical orthodox bigotry by the patriarchs of those cultures. Isaias saw through it, as did the Jesus of the Gospel of the Nazirenes.

16Then shall they be taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments; and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever.

17Immediately after this shall he, together with them, burn and perish; they shall be bound until the consummation of many generations.

18Destroy all the souls addicted to dalliance, (15) and the offspring of the Watchers, for they have tyrannized over mankind.
19Let every oppressor perish from the face of the earth;
20Let every evil work be destroyed;

1Then Enoch, passing on, said to Azazyel: You shalt not obtain peace. A great sentence is gone forth against you. He shall bind you;
2Neither shall relief, mercy, and supplication be yours, on account of the oppression which you have taught;
3And on account of every act of blasphemy, tyranny, and sin, which you have discovered to the children of men.

And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods...