10 May 2017 *Navigate to scripture index: index-passages.**
Here’s a weirdly separated half-translation of Isaiah 1:13.
Do not bring me any more lying sacrifices; incense is abhorrent to me, new moon and Sabbath, the calling of an assembly || I cannot endure || iniquity and a solemn meeting.
What is the object of endure? The KJV says new moon and Sabbath, &c. So you get a translation roughly along these lines: Do not bring me another lying offering. Incense is abhorrent to me. The new moon, the Sabbath, the calling of an assembly — I cannot endure them. This leaves the words iniquity and a solemn meeting stranded. The KJV creates a weird statement out of them: “[it is] iniquity, even the solemn meeting.”
More recent translations make iniquity and a solemn meeting the object of endure. And so we get a verse along these lines:
Do not bring me another lying offering. Incense is abhorrent to me. The new moon, the Sabbath, the calling of an assembly — I cannot endure iniquity with a solemn meeting.
This seems to make better sense. The last sentence is choppy, but the speaker is agitated. It works.
Side Note
George Gray said that the word I’m translating as incense instead refers to the smoke from animal sacrifices. If true, this still doesn’t change the meaning of the verse. Evil and hypocrisy have made God unreceptive to offerings.