Book of Malachi

The remainder of the word of the Lord upon Israel by the hand of his messenger. Hālawayokē’a, in your heart. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. And you say, “Wherein have you loved us? Is it not that Esau is the brother of Jacob?” says the Lord. “Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated, and I have afflicted him in his lands, and I have given his portion to the one who is worthy.” For he says, “Now the house of Edom has fallen; let us build and let us rebuild the altar.” As the Lord lives, you yourselves have built, and I have destroyed, and it is called the land of iniquity, and the eyes of the people whom the Lord has scattered shall see until eternity. And you yourselves say, “Great is the Lord above the land of Israel.” “Does a son honor his father, and does a servant honor his lord? If I am your father, where is it that you have honored me? And if I am your lord, where is it that you have feared me?” says the Lord, “as the Lord lives. For you, priests, have despised my name, and you say, ‘Wherein have we despised your name?’

Because I have loved you, into my sanctuary you have brought an unclean offering, and you say, “Wherein have we caused him to be poor?” Because you say, “The hand of the Lord is a curse, it is; and also that which is hidden in it, who is it?” Because you enter a defiled one for sacrifice, and it is not good like that; and if you have brought a lame and a sick one, it is not good at all. “Go to your messenger; if he will entreat for you, and if he will raise his face to you,” says the Lord who rules over all. And now, boast before the face of the Lord your God, and ask him, because by your hands this has been done; and see if he raises his face to you, says the Lord who rules over all. Because on your account the ark has been cleansed, and you do not cast away my sacrifice in vain. “And he will not accept you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and he will not receive a sacrifice from your hands.” Because from the rising of the sun until the setting, my name is praised among the peoples; and from all the nations they bring incense for my name and a pure sacrifice, because my name is great among all the peoples, says the Lord who rules over all.

And you, you defile it, because you say, “The hand of the Lord is a curse,” and also, “What is within it is nothing.” And you say, “This is from the eye of affliction,” and we have blown it away, says the Lord who rules over all, because you have brought what is defiled and polluted and foul into the sanctuary; and even if I had brought an offering, you would not have accepted it from my hands, says the Lord who rules over all. Cursed shall be everything that has a male, and in his pasture, and in his departure, while he is being humiliated and shamed before the Lord, because it has a curse; for I am a great king, says the Lord who rules over all, and my name shall be heard among all nations. Chapter 2 And now this command is for you, priests. I have not heard, and it has not entered your heart, that you have given a sign for my name, says the Lord who rules over all; and I will turn a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing; and if your blessing comes, you will not be blessed within it, because you have not blessed it in your heart.

Now I, I will take away your shame and your disgrace from your face, and I will diminish your lords, and I will raise you up together. And you marvel that I sent you this commandment, that it might be my ordinance among the Levites, says the Lord who rules all. And my ordinance of life and peace shall be with him, and I gave him fear, that he might fear me before my face, for my name. And he shall set my law of righteousness in his mouth, and no iniquity shall be found in his lips without righteousness and peace, and he shall go with me, and many shall be healed from their error. For the lips of the priest guard the counsel of the one who reveals the law in his heart, for he is the angel of the Lord who rules all. And you, you have been hidden from his path, and you have led many astray from the law, and you have changed the ordinance of Levi, says the Lord who rules all. And I have made you few and scattered among all the peoples, because you have hidden my path and turned your face from the law.

Is it not that one Lord created you, and one is your father for all of you? For all of you have abandoned your covenant and changed the law of your fathers. And Judah and Israel will be abandoned in Jerusalem, for Judah has defiled my sanctuary, for he has loved, led astray, and served foreign gods. The Lord will punish every person who does this deed, and he will diminish from the sons of Jacob and from the multitude of their offering a sacrifice to the Lord that is wholly filled. And this which I hate you do, and you have covered it with tears for the sacrifice of the Lord, and weeping, and crying, and lamentation again. It will not hinder you; I will look upon the sacrifice, and I will take good from your hands. And you say, "By what means? For the Lord has heard your prayer and the prayer of your wife, that she is more than you, she who abandoned, and she is your rival, and the wife whom you married by law." And is it not another who has created this, and his spirit remained? And you say, "What does the Lord desire without seed?" And beware in your spirit, and do not abandon your wife who is more than you.

And if you send your enemy, says the Lord of all who rules, the Lord God of Israel, and he covers his garment with filth, says the Lord of all who rules. And you were guarded by your spirit, and your fathers left. Those who please the Lord by your word, and you say, "Why have we pleased him?" For you say, "All that he does, evil, he does to the Lord, and to them he does good." And where then is the God of justice? Chapter 3 Behold, I send my angel, and he shows my command before your face, and he comes into the house, into the sanctuary of the Lord, which you have sought, my angel of the covenant, which you desire. Behold, he comes, says the Lord of all who rules. And who will be terrified at the time of his coming? And who will be burned by the fire of his sight? For he himself goes like fire of lightning, consuming grass like a flame. And he sits and preaches and purifies like silver and like gold, and he cleanses the sons of Levi and melts them like gold and like silver, and they become for the Lord those who bring sacrifice in righteousness.

And if you prepare a sacrifice for the Lord of Judah and Jerusalem at the end of the days of the world, and according to the year of their ancestors. And if I come to you in judgment, and their wickedness, the witnesses for the men of deceit and for the liars, and for those who swear falsely in my name, and for those who take a bribe for a judgment, and for those who curse the poor and the orphans of the dead, and for those who pervert justice for the litigant, and for those who do not fear my name, says the Lord of all who rules. Because I am the Lord your God, I will not be troubled. Just as you, sons of Jacob, have not abandoned the iniquity of your fathers, who transgressed the law and did not keep it, turn to me, and I will turn to you, says the Lord of all who rules. And you say, "How shall we turn?" Does a man turn to the Lord? Behold, you have turned me away, and your predecessors are with you. And you have been turned away; you have turned me away, and his years are gone.

And your sins, all your harvest, into the granaries, and it will become a pestilence in his house. I have preserved this one, says the Lord of all, that he may fill it. If I had not delayed for you the rain of heaven, and if I had not given you the rain of heaven, and if I had not given you my blessing, until it would consume you. And I would give to your third [generation], and I would not diminish for you the fruit of your land, and I would not mix your wine that is in the wilderness, says the Lord of all, that he may rule. And all the peoples will mock you, for you will be like a barren land, says the Lord of all, that he may rule. I have made you heavy upon me, your matter, says the Lord of all, that he may rule. I have made you heavy upon me, your matter, says the Lord of all, and you say, "With what have we sinned?" For you say falsely, "We have bowed down to the Lord, and what have we gained? What have we kept of his commandment? Behold, we have bowed down, we have bowed down before him," says the Lord of all, that he may rule.

And now, today, they will go out to the field and they will harvest and they will make a name for themselves, and they will accuse the Lord of all, and they will be destroyed. Just as they have despised him, those who fear the Lord, one by one with another, and the Lord has seen and heard and written a book of remembrance before them, for those who fear the Lord and for those who fear his name. And they will be, says the Lord of all who rules, "I will make life for myself, and I will set them apart as a man who begets a son who is pleasing to him." And they will be divided and they will see between righteousness and between sin and between those who are pleasing to the Lord and between those who are not pleasing. Chapter 4 And now the day of the Lord will come, while it burns like fire, their woe, and they will be strangers, the peoples, and all of them, the men of iniquity, will be destroyed, and their day will come upon them, says the Lord of all who rules, and their root and their stump will not remain.

He will steal from you, from those who fear my name, the sun of righteousness and life in his wing, and they will go out and they will be scattered like a flock that has been released from its tether. And they will deceive the sinners, and they will heap up dust beneath your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of all, who rules. Behold, I send to you Elhasah, the chosen one, without the day of the Lord arriving, the cloud that you will see. And the heart of the father goes out to the children, and the heart of a man to his offspring, when they are full and I have covered the earth. Remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded on Horeb, the ordinance and judgment for all Israel.