He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.”

If you do not listen and take seriously the need to honor my name,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will send judgment on you and turn your blessings into curses – indeed, I have already done so because you are not taking it to heart.

Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law.

You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table of the Lord as if it is of no importance!

I am about to discipline your children and will spread offal on your faces, the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, to whom at Horeb I gave rules and regulations for all Israel to obey.

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