Malachi 3:13-4:6

Revised Standard Version

¹³ “Your words have been stout against me, says the Lord. Yet you say, ‘How have we spoken against thee?’ ¹⁴ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? ¹⁵ Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape.’”

The Reward of the Faithful

¹⁶ Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another; the Lord heeded and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and thought on his name. ¹⁷ “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. ¹⁸ Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

The Great Day of the Lord

4 ^[a] “For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall. ³ And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

⁵ “Behold, I will send you Eli′jah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.”^[b]