¹⁶ And you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.

¹⁷ You shall make for yourselves no molten gods.

¹⁸ The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.

¹⁹ All the males that first open the womb among your livestock are Mine, whether ox or sheep.

²⁰ But the firstling of a donkey [an unclean beast] you shall redeem with a lamb or kid, and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none of you shall appear before Me empty-handed.

²¹ Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest [on the Sabbath].

²² You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.

²³ Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

²⁴ For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire [and molest] your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

²⁵ You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left until morning.

²⁶ The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in his mother’s milk.

²⁷ And the Lord said to Moses, Write these words, for after the purpose and character of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.

²⁸ Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

²⁹ When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the Testimony in his hand, he did not know that the skin of his face shone and sent forth beams by reason of his speaking with the Lord.

³⁰ When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they feared to come near him.

3 Behold, I send My ^[a]messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me. And the Lord [the Messiah], Whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; the ^[b]Messenger or Angel of the covenant, Whom you desire, behold, He shall come, says the Lord of hosts.^(A)

² But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;^(B)

³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the priests, the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness.

⁴ Then will the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in ancient years.

⁵ Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the false swearers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and who turn aside the temporary resident from his right and fear not Me, says the Lord of hosts.

⁶ For I am the Lord, I do not change; that is why you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

⁷ Even from the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, How shall we return?

⁸ Will a man rob or defraud God? Yet you rob and defraud Me. But you say, In what way do we rob or defraud You? [You have withheld your] tithes and offerings.

⁹ You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing Me, even this whole nation.^(C)

¹⁰ Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.^(D)

¹¹ And I will rebuke the devourer [insects and plagues] for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine drop its fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.

¹² And all nations shall call you happy and blessed, for you shall be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

¹³ Your words have been strong and hard against Me, says the Lord. Yet you say, What have we spoken against You?

¹⁴ You have said, It is useless to serve God, and what profit is it if we keep His ordinances and walk gloomily and as if in mourning apparel before the Lord of hosts?

¹⁵ And now we consider the proud and arrogant to be happy and favored; evildoers are exalted and prosper; yes, and when they test God, they escape [unpunished].

¹⁶ Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name.

3 In those days there appeared John the Baptist, preaching in the Wilderness (Desert) of Judea

² And saying, Repent (^[a]think differently; change your mind, regretting your sins and changing your conduct), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

³ This is he who was mentioned by the prophet Isaiah when he said, The voice of one crying in the wilderness (shouting in the desert), Prepare the road for the Lord, make His highways straight (level, ^[b]direct).^(A)

⁴ This same John’s garments were made of camel’s hair, and he wore a leather girdle about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.^(B)

⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the country round about the Jordan went out to him;

⁶ And they were baptized in the Jordan by him, confessing their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee and escape from the wrath and indignation [of God against disobedience] that is coming?

⁸ Bring forth fruit that is consistent with repentance [let your lives prove your change of heart];

⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham for our forefather; for I tell you, God is able to raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones!

¹⁰ And already the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ I indeed baptize you ^[c]in (with) water ^[d]because of repentance [that is, because of your ^[e]changing your minds for the better, heartily amending your ways, with abhorrence of your past sins]. But He Who is coming after me is mightier than I, Whose sandals I am not worthy or fit to take off or carry; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

¹² His winnowing fan (shovel, fork) is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear out and clean His threshing floor and gather and store His wheat in His barn, but the chaff He will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.

¹⁴ But John ^[f]protested strenuously, having in mind to prevent Him, saying, It is I who have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?

¹⁵ But Jesus replied to him, ^[g]Permit it just now; for this is the fitting way for [both of] us to fulfill all righteousness [that is, to ^[h]perform completely whatever is right]. Then he permitted Him.

¹⁶ And when Jesus was baptized, He went up at once out of the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he [John] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him.

¹⁷ And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is My Son, My Beloved, in Whom I delight!^(C)