Mat 9:13 But go and learn what this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice: for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

This verse has so much that I have to cut it into three parts, beginning, the middle, and the end.

In the beginning, "go" is from the Greek poreuomai, which isn't the term that Matthew usually translates as "go" (hupago). Poreuomai means "to lead over," and "to carry over." It means both "to pursue a course" and "to depart from life." "To learn" is manthano, which means "to learn from study or by practice."

The first part of this verse tells people to continue from their life and learn from it.

The middle of the verse is clearly a reference to the transition from OT sacrifice to the focus in the NT on relationships between people.

"I will" is thelo, which means "I desire" or "I like." The Greek term translated as "have mercy" is eleos, which specifically means "good will toward the afflicted." Interesting, the Greek terms translated as "sacrifice," thusia, does not refer to the act of sacrifice but to "a burnt offering" or "victim."

So the line can also be translated as "I desire good will toward the afflicted and not victims," which applauds people for helping victims but at the same time makes it clear that no one should want to be a victim in order to qualify for mercy.

The next part adds another layer of sophistication to this idea.

The term translated as "call" is kaleo, which like our word "call" means both "to summon" and also "to name." The term translated as "righteous" is dikaios, which means "those who observe the laws," "well-balanced," and "meet and fitting." "Sinners" is from hamartolos, which means "erroneous" or "erring." It also means "of bad character" but with the sense of being a slave or low-born not evil. Only in biblical translations is this term given the sense of wickedness. The term translated are "repentance" is metanoia, which literally means "a change of mind" but also means "regret" and "repentance."

This second part of the verse might be translated as "I have not come to call anyone law-abiding but to call those who are making mistakes to change their mind."

Again, as we have noted in our article, Misconceptions of Good and Evil, the concepts in Greek regarding good and evil in the NT are not quite the sense that they have taken on in English.