²⁵ Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?^(A)

⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?^{(A) 6} And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink only for yourselves?

³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Do Not Rob God

⁸ Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings!^(A)

¹³ “What a weariness this is,” you say, and you sniff at it,^[a] says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord.^{(A) 14} Cursed be the cheat who has a male in the flock and vows to give it and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished, for I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is reverenced among the nations.^(B)

Corruption of the Priesthood

⁶ A son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. You say, “How have we despised your name?”^{(A) 7} By offering polluted food on my altar. And you say, “How have we polluted it?”^[a] By thinking that the Lord’s table may be despised.^{(B) 8} When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not wrong? Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.^(C)

²² For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.^(A)