Jubilee2000 - Malachi

Chapter 1

1:1  The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel by the hand of Malachi.

1:2  I have loved you, said the LORD. Yet ye say, In what hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? said the LORD; yet I loved Jacob,

1:3  and I rejected Esau and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

1:4  When Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The province of wickedness and The people against whom the LORD has indignation for ever.

1:5  And your eyes shall see and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified over the province of Israel.

1:6  The son honours [his] father and the servant his master; if then I [am] a father, where [is] my honour? and if I [am] a master, where [is] my fear? said the LORD of the hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, In what have we despised thy name?

1:7  Ye offer polluted bread upon my altar; and ye say, In what have we polluted thee? In that ye say, We die of hunger in the service of the LORD.

1:8  And when ye offer the blind [animal] for sacrifice, [is it] not evil? Likewise when ye offer the lame and sick, [is it] not evil? offer it now unto thy prince; will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person? said the LORD of the hosts.

1:9  And now, therefore, beseech the face of God, and he will have compassion on us; this has come by your hand: will he regard your persons? said the LORD of the hosts.

1:10  Who [is there] even among you that would shut the doors or tend [the fire] on my altar for free? I have no pleasure in you, said the LORD of the hosts, neither will the offering from your hand be agreeable unto me.

1:11  For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a clean offering; for my name [is] great among the Gentiles, said the LORD of the hosts.

1:12  And ye have profaned it when ye say, We die of hunger at the service of the LORD and when ye speak that his food is contemptible.

1:13  And ye say, Behold, what a weariness [it is]! and ye have rejected it, said the LORD of the hosts; and ye brought [that which was] stolen or lame or sick and presented an offering: should this be acceptable unto me by your hand? said the LORD.

1:14  But cursed [be] the deceiver, who has in his flock a male and vows and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I [am] a great King, saith the LORD of the hosts, and my name [is] formidable among the Gentiles.:

Chapter 2

2:1  And now, O ye priests, this commandment [is] for you.

2:2  If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay [it] to heart, to give glory unto my name, said the LORD of the hosts, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already because ye do not lay [it] to heart.

2:3  Behold, I reprehend [your] seed and spread the dung upon your faces, [even] the dung of your solemnities; and ye shall be removed with it.

2:4  And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, said the LORD of the hosts.

2:5  My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him [for] the fear with which he feared me and was broken before my name.

2:6  The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and righteousness and turned many away from iniquity.

2:7  For the priest's lips keep wisdom, and they seek the law at his mouth; for he [is an] angel of the LORD of the hosts.

2:8  But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, said the LORD of the hosts.

2:9  Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

2:10  Have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why do we despise each man his brother by breaking the covenant of our fathers?

2:11  Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD by loving and marrying the daughter of a strange god.

2:12  The LORD will cut off the man that does this, the master and the scholar out of the tabernacles of Jacob and him that offers an offering unto the LORD of the hosts.

2:13  And once again ye shall cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, for I shall not even look at the offering any more to receive [a] free will offering from your hand.

2:14  Yet ye say, Why? Because the LORD has been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet she [is] thy companion and the wife of thy covenant.

2:15  And did he not make one, having in himself abundance of [the] Spirit? And why one? That he might seek offspring of God. Therefore take heed to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

2:16  He that rejects her, sending her away, said the LORD God of Israel, covers the violence with his garment, said the LORD of the hosts; therefore take heed in your spirit, and do not be treacherous.

2:17  Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, In what have we wearied [him]? When ye say, Every one that does evil pleases the LORD, and he delights in them; or, Where [is] the God of judgment?:

Chapter 3

3:1  Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant, whom ye desire: behold, he comes, said the LORD of the hosts.

3:2  But who may abide the time of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he [shall be] like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap:

3:3  And he shall sit to refine and to purify the silver: for he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

3:4  Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasant unto the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

3:5  And I will come near unto you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against false swearers and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and do not fear me, said the LORD of the hosts.

3:6  For I [am] the LORD, I have not changed; therefore, ye sons of Jacob have not been consumed.

3:7  Even from the days of your fathers, ye had departed from my ordinances and had never kept [them]. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, said the LORD of the hosts. But ye said, In what shall we return?

3:8  Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, In what have we robbed thee? In the tithes and the offerings.

3:9  Ye [are] cursed with a curse: for ye, even this whole nation, have robbed me.

3:10  Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and there shall be food in my house, and prove me now in this, said the LORD of the hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that [there shall] not [be room] enough [to receive it].

3:11  And I will reprehend the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of the ground; neither shall the vine in the field abort, said the LORD of the hosts.

3:12  And all the Gentiles shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, said the LORD of the hosts.

3:13  Your words have prevailed against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee?

3:14  Ye have said, It [is] vain to serve God, and what profit [is it] that we have kept his law and that we walk mournfully before the LORD of the hosts?

3:15  We say, therefore, now, that blessed are the proud and even that those that work wickedness are prospered; [those that] tempted God have escaped.

3:16  Then those that feared the LORD spoke one to another, and the LORD hearkened and heard [it], and a book of remembrance was written before him for those that feared the LORD and for those that think in his name.

3:17  And they shall be mine, said the LORD of the hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.

3:18  Therefore become ye converted, and ye shall make a difference between the just and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that did not serve him.:

Chapter 4

4:1  For, behold, the day comes that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble; and the day that comes shall burn them up, said the LORD of the hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

4:2  But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness be born, and in his wings [he shall bring] saving health; and ye shall go forth and jump like calves of the herd.

4:3  And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, said the LORD of the hosts.

4:4  Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb statutes and my rights over all Israel.

4:5  Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD:

4:6  and he shall convert the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with destruction.