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Malachi 1

The LORD’s Love for Israel
(Genesis 25:19–28; Romans 9:6–29)

1 The burden of the Word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi.

2 I have loved you, says the LORD. Yet you say, In what way have you loved us? Wasn't Esau Jacob’s brother? says the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom says, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus says the LORD of Armies, They will build, but I will throw down; and they will call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD has indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes will see, and you will say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.

The Polluted Offerings

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 Armies to you, O priests, that despise my name. And you say, In what have we despised your name? 7 You offer polluted bread upon my altar? and you say, In what have we polluted you? In that you say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. 8 And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now to your governor; will he be pleased with you, or accept your person? says the LORD of Armies. 9 And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be cheerful to us: this has been by your means: will he regard your person? says the LORD of Armies. 10 Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? neither do you kindle fire on my altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of Armies, neither will I accept an offering from your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun even to the setting of the same, my name will be great among the Nations; and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name will be great among the heathen, says the LORD of Armies. 12 But you have profaned it, in that you say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit of it, even his provision, is contemptible. 13 You said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and you have snuffed at it, says the LORD of Armies; and you brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus you brought an offering: should I accept this from your hand? says the LORD. 14 But cursed be the deceiver, who has in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, says the LORD of Armies, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.

Malachi 2

Malachi

A Warning to the Priests

1 And now, O you priests, this commandment is for you. 2 If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the LORD of Armies, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one will take you away with it. 4 And you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with Levi, says the LORD of Armies. 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 afraid before my name. 6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. 7 For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of Armies. 8 But you have departed out of the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of Armies. 9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as you have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

Judah’s Unfaithfulness

10 Have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD whom he loved, and has married the daughter of a strange god. 12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering to the LORD of Armies.

13 And this have you done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. 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 is she your companion, and the wife of your covenant. 15 And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And why one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, says, that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, says the LORD of Armies: therefore take heed to your spirit, that you deal not treacherously.

17 You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, In what have we wearied him? When you say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

Malachi 3

Malachi

I Will Send My Messenger
( Matthew 11:7–19; Luke 7:24–35)

1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he will come, says the LORD of Armies. 2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who will stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. 3 And he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness. 4 Then will the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

5 And I will come near to you to 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 fear not me, says the LORD of Armies.

Robbing God

6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.

7 Even 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 Armies. But you said, In what will we return?

8 Will a man rob God? yet you have robbed me. But you say, In what have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring you all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now with this, says the LORD of Armies, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it. 11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he will not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither will your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the LORD of Armies. 12 And all nations will call you blessed: for you will be a delightsome land, says the LORD of Armies.

The Book of Remembrance

13 Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against you? 14 You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Armies? 15 And now we call the proud happy; yes, they that work wickedness are set up; even they that tempt God are delivered.

16 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they will be mine, says the LORD of Armies, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18 Then will you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

Malachi 4

Malachi

The Day of the LORD
(Zephaniah 1:7–18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; 2 Peter 3:8–13)

1 For behold, the day cometh, that will burn as an oven; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, will be stubble: and the day that cometh will burn them up, says the LORD of Armies, that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But to you that fear my name, will the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and you will go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 3 And you will tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I will do this, says the LORD of Armies.

4 Remember you 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 dreadful day of the LORD: 6 And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.