God will have no temple at all if men think by temple-building itself to do him service.

If cult is performed to curry favor with God, to satisfy God’s supposed needs, and thereby get something for ourselves from him, we should shut the doors of the temple at once and abandon the whole thing. But if our attitude in worship is the opposite of such arrogance as to think we can do something for God, and is instead the humble recognition that we can do nothing either for or to him (afflicted), the awareness that we deserve nothing but destruction from him (broken in spirit), and the desire to do nothing other than what he commands (trembles at my word),20 then the expression of such a spirit through the medium of ritual and symbolic worship is entirely pleasing to God.

God’s sanctuary is the human heart (cf. 57:15), and unless he dwells there, all other sanctuary building is an exercise in futility.22