MKJV - Malachi

Chapter 1

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

1:2  I have loved you, says the LORD. But you say, In what have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says the LORD; yet I loved Jacob,

1:3  and I hated Esau and made his mountains a desolation, and his inheritance to be for the jackals of the wilderness.

1:4  If Edom says, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places. So says the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them the region of wickedness, and the people with whom the LORD is indignant forever.

1:5  And your eyes shall see, and you shall say, The LORD will be magnified beyond the border of Israel.

1:6  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, In what way have we despised Your name?

1:7  You offer defiled bread upon My altar; and you say, In what way have we defiled You? In your saying, The table of the LORD, it is a thing to be despised.

1:8  And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Bring it now to your governor. Will he accept you, or lift up your face, says the LORD of hosts?

1:9  And now entreat the face of God, that He favor us. This has been by your hands, will He lift up your faces, says the LORD of hosts?

1:10  Who is even among you who will shut the doors, and you not kindle fire on My altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts. I will not be pleased with an offering from you.

1:11  For from the rising of the sun even to its going in, My name shall be great among the nations; and everywhere incense shall be offered to My name, and a pure food offering. For My name shall be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.

1:12  But you are profaning it when you say, The table of the LORD, it is polluted; and its fruit, His food, is to be despised.

1:13  You also said, Behold, what a weariness it is! And you have puffed at it, says the LORD of hosts. And you bring plunder, and the lame, and the sick, and you bring the food offering. Should I accept it from your hand, says the LORD?

1:14  But cursed be a deceiver; and there is in his flock a male, yet he vows it, but sacrifices to the LORD a blemished one. For I am a great king, says the LORD of hosts, and My name is feared among the nations.

Chapter 2

2:1  And now, O priests, this command is for you.

2:2  If you will not hear, and if you will not set it on your heart to give glory to My name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. And indeed I have cursed it, because you do not set it on your heart.

2:3  Behold, I am rebuking your seed; and I will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your appointed feasts. And one shall lift you up to it.

2:4  And you shall know that I have sent this command to you, to be My covenant with Levi, says the LORD of hosts.

2:5  My covenant with him was life and peace, and I gave them to him for fear; and he feared Me, and he is awed 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 uprightness, and turned away many from iniquity.

2:7  For the priest's lips should guard knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

2:8  But you have turned out of the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts.

2:9  Therefore I have also made you despised and low before all the people, just as you have not kept My ways but are lifting up faces in the law.

2:10  Is there not one Father to us all? Has not one God created us? Why do we act deceitfully, each man with his brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers.

2:11  Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the holy place of the LORD, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

2:12  The LORD will cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does it; stirring and answering; or offering a food offering to the LORD of hosts.

2:13  And this is a second thing you have done, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, weeping, and groaning, yet not facing toward the food offering, and taking it with delight from your hand.

2:14  Yet you say, Why? Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your covenant wife.

2:15  And did He not make you one? Yet the vestige of the Spirit is in him. And what of the one? He was seeking a godly seed. Then guard your spirit, and do not act treacherously with the wife of your youth.

2:16  The LORD, the God of Israel, says He hates sending away; and to cover with violence on his garment, says the LORD of hosts. Then guard your spirit, and do not act treacherously.

2:17  You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, In what have we wearied Him? When you say, Every evildoer is good in the eyes of the LORD, and He delights in them; or, Where is the God of justice?

Chapter 3

3:1  Behold, I will send My messenger, and He will clear the way before Me. And the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Angel of the Covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He comes, says the LORD of hosts.

3:2  But who can endure the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.

3:3  And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may be offerers of a food offering in righteousness to the LORD.

3:4  Then the food offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years.

3:5  And I will come near you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those who extort from the hired laborer's wages, and turning away the widow, and the orphan, the alien, and not fearing Me, says the LORD of hosts.

3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not. Because of this you sons of Jacob are not destroyed.

3:7  From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say. In what way shall we return?

3:8  Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, In what have we robbed You? In the tithe and the offering!

3:9  You are cursed with a curse; for you are robbing Me, the nation, all of it.

3:10  Bring all the tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. And test Me now with this, says the LORD of hosts, to see if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you, and pour out a blessing for you, until there is no sufficiency.

3:11  And I will rebuke your devourer, and he shall not decay the fruit of your ground against you; nor shall your vine miscarry against you in the field, says the LORD of hosts.

3:12  And all nations shall call you blessed; for you shall be a delightful land, says the LORD of hosts.

3:13  Your words have been strong against Me. says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken against You?

3:14  You have said, It is vain to serve God; and, What profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked as mourners before the LORD of hosts?

3:15  And now we are calling the arrogant blessed. Not only are the doers of wickedness built up, they also test God, and escape.

3:16  Then those fearing the LORD spoke together, each man to his neighbor. And the LORD listened and heard. And a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who feared the LORD, and for those esteeming His name.

3:17  And they shall be Mine, says the LORD of hosts, for the day that I will make up My treasure. And I will pity them as a man has pity on his son who serves him.

3:18  Then you shall again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God, and him who does not serve Him.

Chapter 4

4:1  For behold, the day is coming, burning like a fire pot; and all the proud, and every doer of wickedness, shall be chaff. And the coming day will set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, which will not leave root or branches to them.

4:2  But to you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise, and healing will be on His wings. And you shall go out and frisk like calves of the stall.

4:3  And you shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day which I am preparing, says the LORD of hosts.

4:4  Remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel, the statutes and judgments.

4:5  Behold, I am sending you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

4:6  And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, that I not come and strike the earth with utter destruction.