and they said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus replied to them, “Yes; have you never read [in the Scripture], ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared and provided praise for Yourself’?”
Go and learn what this [Scripture] means: ‘I desire compassion [for those in distress], and not [animal] sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call [to repentance] the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to change], but sinners [those who recognize their sin and actively seek forgiveness].”
And if you had only known what this statement means, ‘I desire compassion [for those in distress], and not [animal] sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
Jesus asked them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The [very] Stone which the builders rejected and threw away, Has become the chief Cornerstone; This is the Lord’s doing, And it is marvelous and wonderful in our eyes’?