Malachi 2:15

2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. ¹  What did our ancestor ²  do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. ³ 

Malachi 4:3

4:3 You will trample on the wicked, for they will be like ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Malachi 2:17

Resistance to the Lord through Self-deceit

2:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” Because you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s opinion, ⁴  and he delights in them,” or “Where is the God of justice?”

Malachi 3:17

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ⁵  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁶  “For indeed the day ⁷  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 ⁸  will not leave even a root or branch.

[2:15]  ¹ tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).

[2:15]  ² tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).

[2:15]  ³ sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).

[2:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”

[3:17]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

[4:1]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.