MALACHI


CHAPTER 1

Mal. 1:
1
An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi.
[Malachi means my messenger.]

Mal. 1:
2
“I have loved you,” says the LORD. “But you ask, ‘How
have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the
LORD says. “Yet I have loved Jacob,

Mal. 1:
3
but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a
wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Mal. 1:
4
Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will
rebuild the ruins.” But this is what the LORD Almighty says:
“They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the
Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the LORD.

Mal. 1:
5
You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the
LORD — even beyond the borders of Israel!’

Mal. 1:
6
“A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a
father, where is the honour due to me? If I am a master,
where is the respect due to me?” says the LORD Almighty.
“It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. “But
you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

Mal. 1:
7
“You place defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How
have we defiled you?’ “By saying that the LORD’s table is
contemptible.

Mal. 1:
8
When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong?
When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not
wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be
pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD
Almighty.


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Mal. 1:
9
“Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings
from your hands, will he accept you?” — says the LORD
Almighty.

Mal. 1:10
“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that
you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not
pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will
accept no offering from your hands.

Mal. 1:11
My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to
the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure
offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will
be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 1:12
“But you profane it by saying of the Lord’s table, ‘It is
defiled’, and of its food, ‘It is contemptible.’

Mal. 1:13
And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it
contemptuously,” says the LORD Almighty. “When you
bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as
sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the
LORD.

Mal. 1:14
“Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock
and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to
the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the LORD Almighty,
“and my name is to be feared among the nations.

CHAPTER 2

Mal. 2:
1
“And now this admonition is for you, O priests.

Mal. 2:
2
If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to
honour my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a
curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have
already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to
honour me.

Mal. 2:
3
“Because of you I will rebuke [Or cut off (see Septuagint)]
your descendants; [Or will blight your corn] I will spread on


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your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will

be carried off with it.

Mal. 2:
4
And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so
that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the LORD
Almighty.

Mal. 2:
5
“My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace,
and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he
revered me and stood in awe of my name.

Mal. 2:
6
True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was
found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and
uprightness, and turned many from sin.

Mal. 2:
7
“For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and
from his mouth men should seek instruction — because he is
the messenger of the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 2:
8
But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have
caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with
Levi,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 2:
9
“So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before
all the people, because you have not followed my ways but
have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

Mal. 2:10
Have we not all one Father? [Or father] Did not one God
create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by
breaking faith with one another?

Mal. 2:11
Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been
committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated
the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a
foreign god.

Mal. 2:12
As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the
LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob — [Or 12 May
the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob anyone who gives
testimony on behalf of the man who does this] even though
he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 2:
13
Another thing you do: You flood the LORD’s altar with
tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention
to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your
hands.

Mal. 2:
14
You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the
witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you
have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the
wife of your marriage covenant.

Mal. 2:
15
Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they
are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly
offspring. [Or 15 But the one who is our father did not do
this, not as long as life remained in him. And what was he
seeking? An offspring from God] So guard yourself in your
spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

Mal. 2:
16
“I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a
man’s covering himself [Or his wife] with violence as well as
with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard
yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

Mal. 2:
17
You have wearied the LORD with your words. “How have
we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are
good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them”
or “Where is the God of justice?”

CHAPTER 3

Mal. 3:
1
“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way
before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come
to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you
desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 3:
2
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand
when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a
launderer’s soap.

Mal. 3:
3
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the
Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD
will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,


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Mal. 3:
4
and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to
the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Mal. 3:
5
“So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to
testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against
those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the
widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but
do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 3:
6
“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of
Jacob, are not destroyed.

Mal. 3:
7
Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away
from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I
will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty. “But you ask,
‘How are we to return?’

Mal. 3:
8
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How
do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings.

Mal. 3:
9
You are under a curse — the whole nation of you — because
you are robbing me.

Mal. 3:10
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be
food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty,
“and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and
pour out so much blessing that you will not have room
enough for it.

Mal. 3:11
I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines
in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD
Almighty.

Mal. 3:12
“Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a
delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 3:13
“You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD.
“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’

Mal. 3:14
“You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain
by carrying out his requirements and going about like
mourners before the LORD Almighty?


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Mal. 3:15
But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers
prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”

Mal. 3:16
Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other,
and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance
was written in his presence concerning those who feared the
LORD and honoured his name.

Mal. 3:17
“They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day
when I make up my treasured possession. [Or Almighty, “my
treasured possession, in the day when I act] I will spare them,
just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

Mal. 3:18
And you will again see the distinction between the righteous
and the wicked, between those who serve God and those
who do not.

CHAPTER 4

Mal. 4:
1
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the
arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that
is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty.
“Not a root or a branch will be left to them.

Mal. 4:
2
But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness
will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and
leap like calves released from the stall.

Mal. 4:
3
Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes
under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these
things,” says the LORD Almighty.

Mal. 4:
4
“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and
laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

Mal. 4:
5
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and
dreadful day of the LORD comes.

Mal. 4:
6
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the
hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and
strike the land with a curse.”