Beginning

1 The burden of the Word of the LORD to Israel by the ministry of Malachi.

² “I have loved you,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, ‘How have You loved us?’ Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” says the LORD. “Yet I loved Jacob

³ “and I hated Esau and made his mountains waste, and his heritage a wilderness for dragons.

⁴ “Though Edom says, ‘We are impoverished. But we will return and build the desolate places.’ Still, the LORD of Hosts says: ‘They shall build but I will destroy it.’ And they shall call them, ‘The Border of Wickedness,’ and the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.

⁵ “And your eyes shall see it. And you shall say, ‘The LORD will be magnified upon the border of Israel.’

⁶ ‘A 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 the LORD of Hosts to you, O priests, who despise My Name. And you say, ‘How have we despised Your Name?’

⁷ “You offer unclean bread upon My Altar. And you say, ‘How have we polluted You?’ By doing that, you say, ‘The Table of the LORD is not to be regarded.’

⁸ “And if you offer the blind for Sacrifice, it is not evil. And if you offer the lame and sick, it is not evil. Offer it now to your princes! Will he be content with you or accept your person?” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁹ “And now, please pray before God that He may have mercy upon us, since this has been done by your hand. Will He regard your means favorably?” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁰ “Who is there even among you who would shut the doors and not kindle fire upon My Altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “Nor will I accept an offering from your hand.

¹¹ “For from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same, My Name is great among the Gentiles. And in every place, incense shall be offered to My Name, and a pure Offering. For My Name is great among the heathen,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹² “But you have polluted it, in that you say, ‘The Table of the LORD is polluted, and its fruit. His food is not to be regarded.’

¹³ “You also said, ‘Behold, it is a weariness!’ And you have sneered at it,” says the LORD of Hosts. “And you offered that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus you offered an Offering. Should I accept this from your hand?” says the LORD.

¹⁴ “But cursed is the deceiver who has a male in his flock and vows and sacrifices a corrupt thing to the LORD! For I am a great King!” says the LORD of Hosts, “And My Name is terrible among the heathen.”

2 “And now, O you priests, this Commandment is for you.

² “If you will not hear it, or consider it in your heart, to give glory to My Name,” says the LORD of Hosts, “I will send a curse upon you, and will curse your blessings. Yea, I have cursed them already, because you do not consider it in your heart.

³ “Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and cast dung upon your faces, the dung of your solemn Feasts. And you shall be like it.

⁴ “And you shall know that I have sent this Commandment to you, so that My Covenant which I made with Levi might stand,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁵ “My Covenant was with him, one of life and peace. And I gave him fear. And he feared Me and was afraid before My Name.

⁶ “The Law of Truth was in his mouth and there was no iniquity found in his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness and turned many away from iniquity.

⁷ “For the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge. And they should seek the Law from his mouth. For he is the messenger of the LORD of Hosts.

⁸ “But you have gone out of the way. You have caused many to fall by the Law. You have broken the Covenant of Levi,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁹ “Therefore, I have also made you despised and vile before all the people, because you did not keep My ways, but have been partial in the Law.”

¹⁰ Have we not all one Father? Has not one God made us? Why do we transgress, each one against his brother, and break the Covenant of our fathers?

¹¹ Judah has transgressed. And an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Israel has defiled the holiness of the LORD, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a strange god.

¹² The LORD will cut off the man who does this—the master and the servant—out of the Tabernacle of Jacob and he who offers an offering to the LORD of Hosts.

¹³ And this you have done again, and covered the Altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with mourning. Because the offering is no longer regarded. Nor is it received acceptably from your hands.

¹⁴ Yet you say, “Why?” Because the LORD has been Witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have transgressed. She still is your companion and the wife of your covenant.

¹⁵ And did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit. And why one? Because He sought a godly seed. Therefore, keep yourselves in your spirit. And let no one trespass against the wife of his youth.

¹⁶ “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and he who covers the injury under his garment,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Therefore, keep yourselves in your spirit, and do not transgress.”

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet, you say “How have we wearied him?” When you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD. And He delights in them.” Or “Where is the God of judgment?”

3 “Behold, I will send My messenger. And he shall prepare the way before Me. And the LORD Whom you seek shall speedily come to His Temple. The messenger of the Covenant, whom you desire, behold, he shall come,” says the LORD of Hosts.

² “But who may abide the Day of His coming? And who shall endure when He appears? For He is like a purging fire, and like launderer’s soap.

³ “And He shall sit down to try and refine the silver. He shall even refine the sons of Levi and purify them as gold and silver, so that they may bring Offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

⁴ “Then shall the Offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable to the LORD, as in days of old and in the years before.

⁵ “And I will come near to you, to judgment. And I will be a swift Witness against the soothsayers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those who wrongfully keep back the hireling’s wages, and trouble the widow, and the fatherless, and oppress the stranger, and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁶ “For I am the LORD. I do not change. And you sons of Jacob are not at an end.

⁷ “From the days of your fathers, you have gone away from My Ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts. “But you said, ‘How shall we return?’

⁸ “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’—in tithes and offerings.

⁹ “You are cursed with a curse. For this whole nation has robbed Me.

¹⁰ “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My House. And test Me now with this,” says the LORD of Hosts, “if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you and pour you out a blessing without measure.

¹¹ “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes. And he shall not destroy the fruit of your ground. Nor shall your vine be barren in the field,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹² “And all nations shall call you blessed. For you shall be a pleasant land,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹³ “Your words have been stout against Me,” says the LORD, “yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’

¹⁴ “You have said, ‘It is in vain to serve God,’ and, ‘What profit is it that we have kept His Commandment and that we walked humbly before the LORD of Hosts?

¹⁵ ‘Therefore, we count the proud blessed. Even those who work wickedness are set up. And those who tempt God, yea, they are delivered.’”

¹⁶ Then those who feared the LORD spoke, everyone to his neighbor. And the LORD listened and heard it. And a Book of Remembrance was written before Him for those who feared the LORD, and who thought upon His Name.

¹⁷ “And they shall be Mine,” says the LORD of Hosts, “on that Day that I shall make them My possession. And I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.”

¹⁸ Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him.

4 “For behold, the Day comes that shall burn as an oven. And all the proud—yea, and all who do wickedly—shall be stubble. And the Day that comes shall burn them up,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and shall leave them neither root nor branch.

² “But to you who fear My Name shall the Sun of righteousness arise. And health shall be under His wings. And you shall go forth and grow up as fat calves.

³ “And you shall tread down the wicked. For they shall be dust under the soles of your feet on the Day that I shall do this,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁴ Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I Commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel, with the Statutes and Judgments.

⁵ “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and fearful Day of the LORD.

⁶ “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the Earth with utter destruction.”