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Malachi

1 The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi. ²I have loved you, says Jehovah. Yet you say, Wherein have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, says Jehovah: yet I loved Jacob; ³but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. ⁴Whereas Edom says, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; this says Jehovah of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and men shall call them The border of wickedness, and The people against whom Jehovah has indignation for ever. ⁵And your eyes shall see, and you shall say, Jehovah be magnified beyond the border of Israel.

⁶A son honors his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is my honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear? says Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say, Wherein have we despised your name? ⁷You offer polluted bread upon my altar. And you say, Wherein have we polluted you? In that you say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible. ⁸And when you offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when you offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto your governor; will he be pleased with you? or will he accept your person? says Jehovah of hosts. ⁹And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this has been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? says Jehovah of hosts. ¹⁰Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. ¹¹For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, says Jehovah of hosts. ¹²But you profane it, in that you say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. ¹³You also say, Behold, what a weariness is it! and you have snuffed at it, says Jehovah of hosts; and you have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; this you bring as the offering: should I accept this at your hand? says Jehovah. ¹⁴But cursed be the deceiver, who has in his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, says Jehovah of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.

2 And now, O you priests, this commandment is for you. ²If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, says Jehovah of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. ³Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you shall be taken away with it. ⁴And you shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant may be with Levi, says Jehovah of hosts. ⁵My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might fear; and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name. ⁶The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. ⁷For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts. ⁸But you are turned aside out of the way; you have caused many to stumble in the law; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says Jehovah of hosts. ⁹Therefore have I also made you contemptible and abased before all the people, according as you have not kept my ways, but have had respect of persons in the law.

¹⁰Have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers? ¹¹Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Jehovah which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹²Jehovah will cut off, to the man that does this, him that wakes and him that answers, out of the tents of Jacob, and him that offered an offering unto Jehovah of hosts. ¹³And this again you do: you cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he regards not the offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand. ¹⁴Yet you say, For what reason? Because Jehovah has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant. ¹⁵And did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? And why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. ¹⁶For I hate putting away, says Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covers his garment with violence, says Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that you deal not treacherously. ¹⁷You have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet you say, Wherein have we wearied him? In that you say, Every one that does evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delights in them; or where is the God of justice?

3 Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes, says Jehovah of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap: ³and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness. ⁴Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Jehovah, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years. ⁵And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the worker in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, says Jehovah of hosts. ⁶For I, Jehovah, change not; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

⁷From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, says Jehovah of hosts. But you say, Wherein shall we return? ⁸Will a man rob God? yet you rob me. But you say, Wherein have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. ⁹You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. ¹⁰Bring the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, says Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. ¹¹And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before the time in the field, says Jehovah of hosts. ¹²And all nations shall call you happy; for you shall be a delightsome land, says Jehovah of hosts.

¹³Your words have been stout against me, says Jehovah. Yet you say, What have we spoken against you? ¹⁴You have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his charge, and that we have walked mournfully before Jehovah of hosts? ¹⁵And now we call the proud happy; yes, they that work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape. ¹⁶Then they that feared Jehovah spoke one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name. ¹⁷And they shall be mine, says Jehovah of hosts, even my own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. ¹⁸Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.

4 For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that comes shall burn them up, says Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. ²But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings; and you shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall. ³And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, says Jehovah of hosts.