The Lord’s Love for Israel
1 A revelation, the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.
Yet you say, “How have you loved us?”
The Lord answered, “Esau was Jacob’s brother, yet I loved Jacob, 3 and hated Esau. I laid his mountains bare and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness.”
4 While Edom says, “We are beaten down, but we will return and build the wastelands,” the Lord of Hosts says, “They shall build, but I will tear down, and people will call them The Wicked Land: the people against whom the Lord is angry forever.”
5 Your own eyes will see it, and you will say, “The Lord is great—even beyond the border of Israel!”
Disobedience of the Priests
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says the Lord of Hosts to you, priests, who despise my name.
You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’
7 You offer defiled bread on my altar.
You say, ‘How have we defiled you?’ When you say, ‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’
8 When you offer the blind animals for sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick ones, is that not evil? Present those now to your governor! Will he be pleased with you? Or will he raise you up?” says the Lord of Hosts.
9 “Now, please entreat the favor of the Lord, that he may be gracious to us. With this, will he accept any of you?” says the Lord of Hosts.
10 “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the temple doors, that you might not kindle a fire on my altar in vain! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “nor will I accept an offering at your hand.
11 For from the rising of the sun to its going down, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the nations,” says the Lord of Hosts. 12 “But you profane it, when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and its fruit–its food, is contemptible.’
13 You say also, ‘What a burden it is!’ and you have turned up your nose at it”, says the Lord of Hosts, “and you have brought lame, sick and stolen sacrifices. This is what you bring as the offering! Should I accept this at your hand?” says the Lord.
14 “But the deceiver is cursed, who has in his flock a male, and vows to offer it, but then sacrifices to the Lord a defective one, for I am a great King,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”