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.

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.

“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.

Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, ¹  to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. ² 

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 

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.

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

So now we consider the arrogant to be happy; indeed, those who practice evil are successful. ¹  In fact, those who challenge ²  God escape!’”

Your eyes will see it, and then you will say, ‘May the Lord be magnified ¹  even beyond the border of Israel!’”

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, ¹  and he delights in them,” or “Where is the God of justice?”

(3:19) ¹  “For indeed the day ²  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 ³  will not leave even a root or branch.

Can a person rob ¹  God? You indeed are robbing me, but you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and contributions! ² 

But now plead for God’s favor ¹  that he might be gracious to us. ²  “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

From the days of your ancestors you have ignored ¹  my commandments ²  and have not kept them! Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord who rules over all. “But you say, ‘How should we return?’

You also say, ‘How tiresome it is.’ You turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and instead bring what is stolen, lame, or sick. You bring these things for an offering! Should I accept this from you?” ¹  asks the Lord.