You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ¹  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ² 

“I hate divorce,” ¹  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ²  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

I am about to discipline your children ¹  and will spread offal ²  on your faces, ³  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

“There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” ¹  says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears ¹  as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” ¹  says the Lord who rules over all.

Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ¹  For Judah has profaned ²  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ³ 

For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, ¹  is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them ²  to your governor! Will he be pleased with you ³  or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

“They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ¹  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

“Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ¹  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

“A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects ¹  his master. If I am your ²  father, where is my honor? If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord who rules over all asks you this, you priests who make light of my name! But you reply, ‘How have we made light of your name?’

He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

Do we not all have one father? ¹  Did not one God create us? Why do we betray one another, in this way making light of the covenant of our ancestors?

For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge of sacred things, and people should seek instruction from him ¹  because he is the messenger of the Lord who rules over all.

But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication ¹  will rise with healing wings, ²  and you will skip about ³  like calves released from the stall.

Look, I will send you Elijah ¹  the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrives.

“I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ¹  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

“But you are profaning it by saying that the table of the Lord is common and its offerings ¹  despicable.

Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can keep standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, ¹  like a launderer’s soap.

Then I will stop the plague ¹  from ruining your crops, ²  and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” says the Lord who rules over all.