A COVENANT STUDY IN TRUTH

Grounded in the Hebrew Tanakh | Confirmed by the New Testament's Own Words | Attested by Christian Scholars

This study is not written in the spirit of hostility toward anyone who calls themselves a Christian. The followers of Yeshua of Nazareth in his own lifetime were Torah-observant people. They fasted, they kept the Sabbath, they went to the Temple, and they read the Torah of Moshe. The study you are about to read is a sincere investigation — using the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and yes, the New Testament's own testimony — into the single most defining doctrine of Western Christianity:

That Yahweh (God) sent His Son to die as a human blood sacrifice to purchase the forgiveness of sins for all of humanity.

The questions this study asks are simple and honest:

Did Yahweh command this? Does the Torah authorize it? Did the Prophets announce it? Did Jesus himself teach it? And where did the full theological system built around it actually come from?

The answers, drawn from the most authoritative sources available — Hebrew, Greek, and the voices of Christian scholarship itself — are more surprising than most believers have ever been told.

"The truth shall set you free" — and truth does not fear examination.

The foundation of the entire study rests on one question: according to the Torah — the Five Books of Moshe, the most authoritative text in all of the Hebrew Scriptures — how does Yahweh deal with human sin?

The Torah is unambiguous. Long before any temple, any altar, or any sacrificial system existed, Yahweh  demonstrated His method of dealing with sin: He calls the sinner to return. The Hebrew word is:

שׁוּב — SHUV

Shuv means to turn, to return, to repent — a complete turning of the will, the heart, and the behavior back toward Yahweh  and away from transgression. This is the primary and recurring answer of the Torah to the problem of human sin.

Ezekiel 18:20-23 — "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him... Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says Yahweh (God). And not that he should turn from his ways and live?"

This passage from the prophet Ezekiel is one of the most devastating declarations against the doctrine of substitutionary atonement — the idea that one person's death covers another person's sins — in all of the Tanakh. It states four thundering truths:

FIRST: The soul that sins is the one that dies. Individual responsibility. Not transferred. Not purchased by a third party.

SECOND: The son does not bear the guilt of the father. Guilt is not inherited. It is not transferable.

THIRD: If the wicked man turns from his sin, he shall surely live. Repentance — not blood sacrifice — is the remedy.

FOURTH: Yahweh takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The purpose of Yahweh (God) is life through return — not death through sacrifice.

This declaration from Yahweh  through His prophet was given centuries after the giving of the Torah. It is not a correction of the Torah — it is a clarification of what the Torah always meant. The one who returns lives. The death of another cannot substitute for that return.

Deuteronomy 24:16 — "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin."

This is Moshe speaking directly in the Torah. The law of Yahweh is clear: each person is accountable for their own sin. No one else's death — not an animal's, not another person's, not even a deity's — can legally satisfy the moral account of a transgressor under Torah law. The person must return. The person must be judged. The person must live righteously.

The Torah does include blood sacrifice — but its purpose and function are radically different from what Christian atonement theology teaches. The Torah's sacrificial system was not a system of purchasing forgiveness for moral sin through death. The recognized paths of atonement in the Hebrew Scriptures are:

1. Repentance (Teshuvah)

The primary and supreme method. Yahweh repeatedly declares through the Prophets that repentance — genuine turning — is what He desires above all sacrifice.

Hosea 6:6 — "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of Yahweh more than burnt offerings."

1 Samuel 15:22 — "Has Yahweh (God) as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Yahweh? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."

2. Prayer and Confession

The Torah and Prophets establish prayer and confession as means of reconciliation with Yahweh (God) that require no blood.

2 Chronicles 7:14 — "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Notice: the conditions are humility, prayer, seeking Yahweh's face, and turning. There is no blood. There is no sacrifice. There is no death of an innocent party.

3. Righteous Action and Charity

The Torah and Prophets explicitly teach that righteous action — particularly toward the poor and vulnerable — carries atoning power.

Proverbs 16:6 — "In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; and by the fear of Yahweh one departs from evil."

Daniel 4:27 — "Break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor."

Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar — a Gentile king — that he could break off his sins and iniquities through righteous behavior and mercy to the poor. No sacrifice. No blood. No death of a substitute.

4. Animal Sacrifice — Its True Purpose and Limits

The Torah does include animal sacrifice as part of the atonement system — but it is critical to understand what it was and what it was not.

Animal sacrifice in the Torah applied primarily to unintentional sins — sins committed in error or ignorance. The Hebrew word used is:

שְׁגָגָה — SHEGAGAH — an error, an unintentional act

Leviticus 4:2-3 — "If a soul sins through ignorance against any of the commandments of Yahweh concerning things which ought not to be done, and does any of them... let him offer for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish."

The Levitical sacrifice was also conditioned on repentance. Without genuine return of heart, the Torah and Prophets repeatedly declare that sacrifice was meaningless — even offensive — to Yahweh (God). And critically:

There was no sacrifice in the Torah for willful, deliberate, high-handed sin. None. The person who sinned presumptuously — with a raised hand, deliberately defying Yahweh — was to be cut off. The blood of animals covered errors. It could not cover rebellion.

Numbers 15:30-31 — "But the person who does anything presumptuously... that one brings reproach on Yahweh, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of Yahweh, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him."

If the Levitical sacrificial system cannot atone for deliberate, willful sin — then the doctrine that one death covers all sin, for all people, for all time, including willful sin, has no foundation in the Torah whatsoever.

The prophet Jeremiah delivers what may be the single most powerful repudiation of the doctrine of human blood sacrifice to appease Yahweh anywhere in all of Scripture. When the people of Israel sacrificed their children to Molech and Baal — practices that parallel the idea of a deity demanding a human death to satisfy justice — Yahweh said:

Jeremiah 7:31 — "And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart."

Jeremiah 19:5 — "...they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind."

Read these words carefully. Yahweh (God) declares through Jeremiah that human sacrifice by fire — offered to satisfy a deity's demand — never came into His heart. Never entered His mind. Was never commanded by Him.

If human sacrifice to appease a deity was something Yahweh (God) explicitly declared never entered His mind — then the doctrine that He required and planned the human sacrifice of His own son to satisfy His own wrath must be reconciled with these words.

Either Jeremiah was telling the truth about what Yahweh never desired — or the atonement doctrine built centuries later is correct. They cannot both be true.

One of the most important historical questions in understanding the roots of Christian atonement theology is this: Was the concept of a god who dies to save humanity original to Christianity — or was this pattern already well-established in the ancient world before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth?

The historical record is unmistakable. The pattern of a dying and rising savior deity existed across the ancient Near East for thousands of years before the Common Era. Here are some of the most significant:

Tammuz / Dumuzi (Sumerian/Babylonian) — circa 2000 BCE

Tammuz was the Sumerian god of food and vegetation. He was mourned as dead and lamented every year in elaborate rituals. The cult of Tammuz was so widespread and so embedded in the culture of the ancient Near East that it had penetrated all the way to Jerusalem. The prophet Ezekiel himself was shown women sitting at the gate of the Temple weeping for Tammuz — an abomination in the eyes of Yahweh.

Ezekiel 8:14 — "So He brought me to the door of the north gate of Yahweh's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz."

The worship of Tammuz — the dying god — was actively practiced in Jerusalem. It was present in the Holy Land. It was known to the people of Israel. And Yahweh (God) called it an abomination.

Osiris (Egyptian) — circa 3000 BCE

Osiris was the Egyptian god of the underworld and resurrection. According to the myth, he was killed by his brother Set, his body was dismembered and scattered, then his wife Isis collected the pieces and he was restored to life in the realm of the dead. The Osiris myth was one of the most dominant religious narratives in the ancient world for thousands of years. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and scholar of religion, noted that the Osiris-Horus relationship — the dying father, the resurrected divine figure — directly influenced the development of the God-Father and Son theology in early Christianity.

Adonis (Greek/Syrian)

Adonis was the Greek equivalent of Tammuz, a dying and rising god associated with vegetation and the cycle of seasons. His rituals included lamentation for his death followed by celebration of his return. Jerome, one of the early Church Fathers — the scholar who produced the Latin Vulgate Bible — recorded that the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem had previously been a grove dedicated to Adonis/Tammuz, and that in the cave where Christ was said to be born, the lover of Venus was once lamented.

Jerome, Church Father (395 AD): "Bethlehem, belonging now to us... was overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz, that is to say, Adonis, and in the cave where once the infant Christ cried, the lover of Venus was lamented."

Dionysus (Greek) — circa 1200 BCE

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine and ecstasy, son of Zeus and a mortal woman, who was killed and then restored to life. His followers participated in ritual meals in which they consumed bread and wine as symbolic participation in the god's body and life. The parallels between Dionysian ritual and the Christian Eucharist were noted by early Christian apologists themselves, who struggled to explain them.

This is not merely the argument of Torah believers or skeptics. Some of the most respected voices in Christian scholarship have acknowledged the historical connections between the theology of a dying savior and the pre-Christian world.

C.S. Lewis, Oxford Scholar and Christian Apologist: "The resemblance between certain features of Christianity and the myths of dying and rising gods... I was not denying the resemblance. Rather I was saying that if pagan religions had long shown a tendency to express themselves in certain symbolic stories about dying and rising gods, then the Incarnation actually worked through and fulfilled those stories."

Lewis — one of Christianity's greatest defenders — did not deny that the pattern existed in the pagan world. His argument was that Jesus was the "myth made fact." But notice what he was forced to concede: the pattern of a dying and rising god was already present in the ancient pagan world. This admission is foundational.

John Dominic Crossan, Christian New Testament Scholar: Paul takes Jesus' death and transforms it from a state-executed tragedy into a divinely ordained salvation event. This is the fusion of Jewish sacrificial theology with the Hellenistic notion of a dying and rising god.

Crossan — a respected New Testament scholar — identifies the precise theological move that Paul made: taking a political execution and reframing it as a cosmic sacrificial event by drawing on the Hellenistic (Greek and Roman) dying-god mythology that saturated the first-century world.

James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890): At the core of religion lay a myth — ritually enacted — of a royal god who incarnated the power of fertility, who was killed and then resurrected... expressed in gods like Attis, Adonis, and Osiris. The dying/rising fertility-god myth came to be embraced by numerous scholars.

Frazer's exhaustive comparative study of world religions documented the universality of the dying-savior pattern thousands of years before Christianity — a pattern so widespread that it cannot be dismissed as coincidence or mere parallel.

Here is a point that cannot be overstated. The Torah and the Prophets do not merely fail to command the worship of a dying and rising savior deity — they actively and repeatedly condemn it.

Tammuz worship — the lamentation for a dying god — was declared an abomination by Yahweh (God) in Ezekiel 8. The Baal and Molech sacrifices — the burning of human flesh to appease a deity's demand — were declared abominations never commanded by Yahweh in Jeremiah 7 and 19.

The question for the sincere seeker of truth is this: If Yahweh (God) declared the pagan pattern of a dying god — worshiped through lamentation, ritual meals, and sacrifice — to be an abomination that never entered His mind, how can that same pattern be the centerpiece of His own plan of salvation?

This section is critical because it uses the Christian's own scripture — the New Testament — to demonstrate that the doctrine of blood atonement was not what Jesus himself taught as the path to forgiveness. The New Testament's own testimony undermines the doctrine built upon it.

Jesus Forgave Sin Directly — Without Any Blood

Repeatedly in the Gospel accounts, Jesus forgave people's sins directly, on the spot, without any mention of his death, any blood, or any sacrifice. This is the testimony of the very writings Christians hold as sacred:

Luke 7:47-48 — "Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much... Then He said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'"

Luke 19:9 — "And Jesus said to him [Zacchaeus], 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham.'" — Zacchaeus repented and gave back what he had stolen. No blood. No sacrifice. Salvation came through repentance and righteous action.

Matthew 9:2 — "Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, 'Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.'"

The sins were forgiven because of faith — not because of a future blood sacrifice. If forgiveness required the death of Jesus, how could sins be forgiven before that death occurred?

Jesus Taught the Torah Method: Repentance and Return

Matthew 4:17 — "From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

Luke 13:3 — "I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

Mark 1:15 — "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of Yahweh (God) is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

The message of Jesus was repentance — shuv — the same message of the Torah. Not "believe in my coming death." Not "trust in my blood." Repent. Return. This is the consistent, primary teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

The Parable of the Prodigal Son — The Most Complete Picture of Forgiveness

In Luke 15, Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son — which Christian scholars universally regard as the fullest expression of Yahweh's forgiveness in the entire New Testament. In that parable, a son takes his inheritance, wastes it in reckless living, comes to his senses, and returns to his father. The father runs to meet him, throws a robe on him, and throws a party.

Notice what is absent from this parable that Jesus told as the supreme illustration of how Yahweh forgives:

There is no demand for blood. There is no sacrifice. There is no death of an innocent party to satisfy the father's wrath. There is no payment. The father simply runs to meet the returning son. The path to forgiveness in Jesus's own supreme illustration is repentance and return — shuv.

If blood sacrifice were truly required for forgiveness, why did Jesus tell this parable with no blood in it?

Jesus Himself Quoted Hosea Over Sacrifice

Matthew 9:13 — "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

Matthew 12:7 — "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless."

Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6 — the same Torah-rooted declaration that Yahweh (God) desires mercy over sacrifice — twice in the Gospel of Matthew. He used it as a correction. He used it as a rebuke. And he directed the people to go learn it.

This is Jesus, in the New Testament, telling people that mercy — not sacrifice — is what Yahweh  desires.

Here is where the historical and theological record becomes undeniable. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement — the idea that Jesus died as a blood sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of Yahweh and purchase forgiveness for all — was not the central teaching of Jesus. It was built primarily by Saul of Tarsus, known as Paul.

This is not merely the argument of Torah believers. Christian scholars themselves have documented and acknowledged this:

Krister Stendahl, Harvard Theologian and New Testament Scholar: The doctrine of justification by faith was hammered out by Paul for the very specific and limited purpose of defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promise of God to Israel.

Stendahl — one of the most respected New Testament scholars of the 20th century — identified that Paul's atonement theology was developed not as a universal eternal truth, but as a specific argument for a specific problem: how can Gentiles enter into the covenant of Israel without becoming Jews and keeping Torah?

Bart Ehrman, New Testament Scholar (University of North Carolina): Without Paul, I doubt that the largest religion in the world would have ever lasted past the second century.

Ehrman — himself a former Christian who became one of the most prominent New Testament scholars — acknowledges Paul's decisive, irreplaceable role in shaping the theology that became Christianity. Not Jesus. Paul.

Paul himself admitted the stumbling block his message presented to Jewish Torah believers:

1 Corinthians 1:23 — "But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness."

Paul acknowledged that the message of a crucified messiah whose death saves was a stumbling block — a skandalon — to Jews. It was not the message of the Torah. It was not the message Moses delivered. It was not the message the Prophets proclaimed. It was a stumbling block — because it contradicted the Torah understanding of sin, atonement, and salvation.

The specific doctrine most Christians hold today — that Jesus absorbed the wrath of Yahweh (God) and was punished in the place of sinners — is called Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). This doctrine does not have ancient origins.

Wikipedia — Penal Substitution (academic consensus): It began with the German Reformation leader Martin Luther and continued to develop within the Calvinist tradition... There is general agreement that no writer in the Early Church taught penal substitution as their primary theory of atonement.

Penal substitution — the belief most evangelical Christians hold as foundational — was not taught by the early church. It was formalized in the 11th century by Anselm of Canterbury, and developed further by John Calvin in the 16th century. It is a medieval and Reformation-era theological construction, not an ancient apostolic teaching.

Andrew Rillera, Professor of Biblical Studies (The King's University): There is no such thing as a substitutionary death sacrifice in the Torah. The death of the animal — the slaughter itself — is given no ritual or theological meaning by any biblical text.

A professor of biblical studies — writing from within Christian academia — concludes that the entire foundation of substitutionary atonement theory does not exist in the Torah. The Torah's sacrificial system was not about death as payment. It was about presenting life to Yahweh (God).

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity: The doctrine of penal substitution had seemed extremely unethical to me... I nonetheless indicated a preference for a position closer to that of Athanasius, in which Christ's death is seen as enabling us to die to sin by our participation, and not as a satisfaction or payment to justice as such.

Even Lewis — Christianity's greatest popular apologist — found the penal substitution doctrine ethically troubling and preferred a different interpretation.

The following are the specific Torah declarations that, taken together, form an impenetrable wall against the doctrine of blood atonement as defined by mainstream Christianity:

Principle 1: Individual Accountability — Sin Cannot Be Transferred

Deuteronomy 24:16 — "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin."

Ezekiel 18:20 — "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son."

If guilt cannot be transferred from parent to child, how can it be transferred to a third party — even a divine one?

Principle 2: Yahweh (God) Does Not Change

Malachi 3:6 — "For I am Yahweh, I do not change."

Numbers 23:19 — "Yahweh is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

If the Torah teaches individual repentance and return as the path to forgiveness — and Yahweh does not change — then a new path requiring blood sacrifice introduced thousands of years after the Torah represents a fundamental change in Yahweh's stated requirements.

Principle 3: Human Sacrifice Was Never in Yahweh's (God's) Mind

Jeremiah 7:31 — "...which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart."

Jeremiah 19:5 — "...which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind."

Yahweh's own words. Human sacrifice — flesh burned or shed to appease a deity — never came into His heart or mind. This is His declaration.

Principle 4: The Torah Itself Forbids Human Sacrifice

Leviticus 18:21 — "And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your Elohim."

Deuteronomy 12:31 — "You shall not worship Yahweh your Elohim in that way; for every abomination to Yahweh which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods."

The Torah does not merely permit human sacrifice under special circumstances — it declares it an abomination and associates it explicitly with pagan worship of false gods. When Israel practiced it, the Prophets condemned it in the strongest possible terms.

Principle 5: Repentance Alone Forgives — Even Without Sacrifice

The entire period of Israel's exile in Babylon — from 586 BCE to 538 BCE — was a period when there was no Temple, no priesthood, and no sacrificial system. Yet Yahweh (God) continued to hear, to forgive, and to restore His people. Daniel prayed. Ezekiel prophesied. Nehemiah prayed. All were heard. None offered blood.

Jonah 3:10 — "Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." — The entire city of Nineveh — Gentiles — was forgiven through repentance alone. No sacrifice. No blood.

Principle 6: Yahweh Himself Is the One Who Forgives — Without Condition of Blood

Isaiah 43:25 — "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins."

Isaiah 55:7 — "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to Yahweh, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."

Yahweh declares that He blots out transgressions for His own sake. The condition given in Isaiah 55 is return — shuv. Not blood. Not a death. Return.

Principle 7: The Tanakh Tests Every Prophet — Including New Testament Authors

Deuteronomy 13:1-4 — "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet... for Yahweh your Elohim is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul."

The Torah provides its own test: if a teacher — even one who performs signs and wonders — leads Israel away from the Torah of Moshe toward doctrines not found in it, that teaching is to be rejected. The doctrine of blood atonement through human sacrifice is not found in the Torah of Moshe. This is the Torah's own standard.

The Torah's path to forgiveness and restoration has never required a human death. It has always been:

Turn — Shuv (שׁוּב)

Genuine, heartfelt turning from transgression. Not a ritual. Not a formula. A real turn of heart, mind, and behavior.

Ezekiel 33:11 — "Say to them: 'As I live,' says Yahweh (God), 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'"

Confess — Vidui (וִידּוּי)

Open, honest acknowledgment of transgression before Yahweh (God). Not to a priest as intermediary. Directly. Personally. Verbally.

Proverbs 28:13 — "He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."

Make Right — Restore and Repair

Where damage has been done to another person, the Torah requires restitution. Words, relationships, property — what was broken must be repaired to the degree possible. Zacchaeus in Luke 19 paid back four times what he had taken. Salvation came when he did so.

Walk in Righteousness — Daily Covenant Life

The covenant life is not a one-time transaction. It is a daily walk. The righteous person keeps Yahweh's (God's) statutes and ordinances — and lives.

Micah 6:8 — "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Yahweh require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Micah 6:8 — one of the most celebrated verses in all of the Hebrew Prophets — gives Yahweh's (God's) own summary of what He requires. Not the blood of bulls. Not the blood of a firstborn son. Justice. Mercy. Humble walking with Yahweh (God).

If you have read this study with an open heart, you have encountered the Hebrew Scriptures — the very foundation your own faith claims to be built upon — and heard what they actually say.

This study is not written to tell you that Jesus of Nazareth was not a significant figure, or that the Gospels contain no truth. It is written to ask you to go deeper. To read the Torah. To hear the Prophets. To ask: Did Yahweh (God) actually command what I have been taught He commanded?

Ezekiel 18 says: Turn and live. Jeremiah 7 says: Human sacrifice never entered My mind. Isaiah 55 says: Return, and He will abundantly pardon. Micah 6:8 says: Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.

These are not the words of men. These are the words of Yahweh (God) — the same Yahweh (God) whose name you call upon, whose salvation you seek, whose kingdom you long for.

The door of Yahweh (God) is open. It has always been open. It opens not through blood — but through return.

Joel 2:32 — "And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of Yahweh shall be saved."

Call on His name. Return with all your heart. Walk in His Torah. This is the covenant. This is the path. This is the truth.