Malachi Chapters

1 | ¹An oracle. These are the words that the Lord directed to Israel through Malachi.

²When the Lord says, “I love you,” you reply, “How do you show that love?” So the Lord asks you, ³“Was Esau not Jacob’s brother? Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau. See how I left his mountains desolate and abandoned his land to the jackals of the desert. ⁴If Edom decides to rebuild its ruins after destruction, the Lord of Hosts says: They may rebuild, but I will demolish. You will call them: ‘Accursed country’ and ‘Nation with which the Lord is forever displeased.’ ⁵You will see this with your own eyes, then you will exclaim: The power of the Lord goes beyond the borders of Israel.”

Where Is Your Respect For Me?

•  ⁶The son honors his father; the servant respects his master. Now, if I am a father, where is the honor due to me? If I am your master, where is your respect for me? This is what the Lord of hosts wants you to know, priests, who despise his name. But you will only ask: How have we despised your name?

⁷You present defiled foods on my altar, yet you say: How did we defile you? You think that my table does not deserve respect. ⁸When you bring a blind animal as a sacrifice, or when you present one that is lame or sick, are you not doing wrong? Go, present these to the governor; will he be pleased and receive you well?” says the Lord of hosts.

⁹So now, ask God to have mercy on us. But if it goes badly for us because of your sin, are you those who should entreat him? ¹⁰Who among you would close my doors that you may no longer come, to kindle a fire upon my altar in vain? I am not pleased with you, says the Lord of hosts, nor am I pleased with your offerings.

¹¹See, from the rising of the sun to its setting, all the nations revere my name, and everywhere, incense is offered to my name and a pure offering. I am rightly esteemed among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. ¹²But you despise my name when you say: “The Lord’s table is dirty, and his food is good for nothing.” ¹³When you complain that you do not like this food, you despise me, says the Lord. You bring a stolen animal, lame or diseased, to offer to me in sacrifice. Do you think that I will accept it? ¹⁴Cursed be the cheater, who sacrifices a stunted animal after promising me a bull from his herd. For I am a great king, and my name is respected through all the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

Warnings For the Priests

2 | ¹This warning is also for you, priests. If you do not listen to it, ²or concern yourself, to glorify my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send the curse on you and even your blessings.

³I will curse you, for none of you takes his ministry seriously. Right now, I am going to break your arm, throw dung in your face, the very dung of your animals, and sweep you away with them. ⁴And you will realize that it was I who threatened to put an end to my Covenant with Levi, your ancestor, says the Lord.

⁵My Covenant with him spoke of life and peace, and I gave him these; it also spoke of respect; and he respected me and reverenced my name. ⁶His mouth taught the true doctrine, and nothing evil came from his lips; he walked in accord with me, being peaceful and upright, and brought back many people from their wickedness. ⁷The lips of the priest speak of knowledge, and the law must be found in his mouth since he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

⁸But you, says the Lord of hosts, have strayed from my way, and, more­over, caused many to stumble because of your teaching. You have broken my Covenant with Levi. ⁹There­fore, I let all the people despise you and consider you unworthy because you do not follow my ways, and you show partiality in your judgments.

¹⁰Do we not all have the same father? Has the same God not created all of us? Why, then, does each of us betray his brother, defiling the Covenant of our ancestors?

¹¹Judah has been unfaithful; a grave sin has been committed in Israel and Jerusalem: the people of Judah have defiled the sacred inheritance of the Lord by loving and marrying the daughters of a foreign god. ¹²Let who­ever does this be cut off from the home­land of Jacob; and let there be no one to defend him in the tribunal, or present an offering for him to the Lord.

Respect for Marriage

¹³You also commit another offense. As the Lord refuses to look at your offerings and does not take them into account, you come, weeping and wailing and cover the altar with tears. ¹⁴And then you ask: “Why?”

The Lord has seen how you dealt with your first wife, the wife of your youth. You betrayed her although she was your companion, with whom you made a covenant. ¹⁵Has God not made a single being and given him breath? And what does he seek but a family, given by God? Do not betray, then, the wife of your youth.

¹⁶I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and those who are covering their violence. Be very careful, and do not betray.

¹⁷You annoy the Lord with your discourses, and you dare say: “How did we annoy him?” You annoy him whenever you say that the Lord favors those who do evil and lets everything go well with them or when you ask: “Where is the God who does justice?”

I Send My Messenger To Prepare the Way

3 | • ¹Now I am sending my messenger ahead of me to clear the way; then, suddenly, the Lord, for whom you long, will enter the Sanctuary. The envoy of the Covenant which you so greatly desire, already comes, says the Lord of hosts. ²Who can bear the day of his coming and remain standing when he appears? He will be like fire in the foundry and like the lye used for bleaching.

³He will be a refiner or a fuller. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. So, the Lord will have priests who will present the offering as it should be. ⁴Then the Lord will accept with pleasure the offering of Judah and Jerusalem, as in former days.

⁵When I will draw near to you to do justice, I shall demand the immediate punishment of the sorcerers and the adulterers, of those who swear false oaths, who oppress the wage earner, the widow, and the orphan, who do not respect the rights of the foreigner. The Lord says they do all this and have no fear of me.

•  ⁶I, the Lord, have not changed in anything; just as you, children of Jacob, are always the same. ⁷Since the day of your ancestors, you stray from my ordinances and do not practice them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you ask: “Why do we have to return?” ⁸Can a man deceive God? Yet, you cheat me and ask: “How did we cheat you?” I point out your sacred tributes and the tenth due to me.

⁹Cursed be you who cheat me! Cursed be all the nation! ¹⁰Turn over, into the temple treasury, the tenth part of all, that there may be food in my house. Then you may test me, says the Lord of hosts, to see if I will not open the gates of heaven and bring blessed rain to you, up to the last drop. ¹¹I will rebuke the locusts, that they may not devour your fields, and let not the vines wither in your land, says the Lord. ¹²Then all the nations will congratulate you because your land will be the choicest.

¹³You say very harsh things about me, says the Lord, and, yet, you say: “What harsh things did we say against you?” ¹⁴You say: “It is useless to serve God. There is no benefit in observing his commandments or in leading an austere life for his sake. Happy are the shameless! ¹⁵Those who do evil succeed in everything; though they provoke God, they remain unharmed.”

¹⁶Those were the very words of those who fear the Lord. The Lord listened and heard what they said. He ordered at once that the names of those who respect and reverence him be written in a record.

¹⁷He declared, “They will be mine on the day I have set. Then I shall care for them as a father cares for his obedient son. ¹⁸You will see the different fates of the good and the bad, those who obey God and disobey him.

•  ¹⁹The day already comes, flaming as a furnace. On that day, all the proud evildoers will be burned like straw in the fire. They will be left without branches or roots. ²⁰On the other hand, the sun of justice will shine upon you who respect my name and bring health in its rays. You will come out leaping like fattened calves. ²¹You will trample on the evildoers, and they will be like ashes scattered on your way when I do this, says the Lord.

I will send Elijah soon

²²Remember the law of my servant Moses, the laws and ordinances I gave him at Mount Horeb for the whole of Israel. ²³I will send you the prophet Elijah before the day of the Lord comes, for it will be a great and terrible day. ²⁴He will reconcile parents with their children and the children with their parents, so I may not have to curse this land when I come.”