Matthew 12:7

“And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice', you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

Having laid His claim Jesus now appeals to the conscience. Had the Pharisees known the meaning of Hosea 6:6 (compare here Matthew 9:3), they would have recognised that God put compassion before ritual. They would in that case have interpreted the Law compassionately and not harshly, and would have allowed the hungry poor to gather for their own need on the Sabbath. They would not have condemned those who in fact had done no wrong. It is a reminder that when we read the Scriptures we have a tendency to see what we want to see. The Pharisees saw prohibitions. Jesus saw compassion. Note the fact that Jesus did not see His disciples as having committed a minor sin, He considered that they had actually had the right to do what they had done, thus specifically setting Himself against the ideas of the Pharisees.