Malachi 2:12

2:12 May the Lord cut off from the community ¹  of Jacob every last person who does this, ²  as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord who rules over all!

Malachi 3:14

3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ³  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ⁴ 

Malachi 1:8

1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, ⁵  is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them ⁶  to your governor! Will he be pleased with you ⁷  or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁸  “For indeed the day ⁹  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ¹⁰  will not leave even a root or branch.

[2:12]  ¹ tn Heb “tents,” used figuratively for the community here (cf. NCV, TEV); NLT “the nation of Israel.”

[2:12]  ² tc Heb “every man who does this, him who is awake and him who answers.” For “answers” the LXX suggests an underlying Hebrew text of עָנָה (’anah, “to be humbled”), and then the whole phrase is modified slightly: “until he is humbled.” This requires also that the MT עֵר (’er, “awake”) be read as עֵד (’ed, “until”; here the LXX reads ἕως, Jews). The reading of the LXX is most likely an alteration to correct what is arguably a difficult text.

[3:14]  ³ tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”

[3:14]  ⁴ sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the Lord. The reason, of course, is that it was blatantly hypocritical.

[1:8]  ⁵ sn Offerings of animals that were lame or sick were strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law (see Deut 15:21).

[1:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “it” (so NAB, NASB). Contemporary English more naturally uses a plural pronoun to agree with “the lame and sick” in the previous question (cf. NIV, NCV).

[1:8]  ⁷ tc The LXX and Vulgate read “with it” (which in Hebrew would be הֲיִרְצֵהוּ, hayirtsehu, a reading followed by NAB) rather than “with you” of the MT (הֲיִרְצְךָ, hayirtsÿkha). The MT (followed here by most English versions) is to be preferred because of the parallel with the following phrase פָנֶיךָ (fanekha, “receive you,” which the present translation renders as “show you favor”).

[4:1]  ⁷ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

[4:1]  ⁸ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

[4:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.