1The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel, given through Malachi.
2"I have loved you," says the LORD. "Yet you say, 'How have you loved us?' Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" says the LORD. "Yet I loved Jacob,"
3"and I hated Esau. I laid his mountains waste, and left his land to the dragons of the wilderness."
4Edom says, "We are brought low, but we will come back and build up the ruined places." This is what the LORD of hosts says: "They will build, but I will throw down. People will call them The Land of Wickedness, and The People the LORD is angry with for ever."
5"Your own eyes will see it, and you will say, 'The LORD will be magnified beyond the border of Israel.'"
6"A son honours his father, and a servant honours his master. If I am a father, then where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is the fear due to me?" says the LORD of hosts to you, priests, who despise my name. "But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'"
7You offer defiled bread on my altar. And you say, 'How have we defiled you?' You do it by saying, 'The table of the LORD is worth nothing.'
8"When you offer a blind animal as a sacrifice, is that not evil? When you offer the lame and the sick, is that not evil? Offer such a gift to your governor. Will he be pleased with you? Will he accept you?" says the LORD of hosts.
9"And now, I ask you, beg God to be gracious to us. This has come about by your own doing. Will he accept any of you?" says the LORD of hosts.
10"Is there even one among you who would shut the doors for nothing? You do not light a fire on my altar for nothing. I take no pleasure in you," says the LORD of hosts, "and I will not accept an offering from your hand."
11"For from the rising of the sun to its going down my name will be great among the Gentiles. In every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD of hosts.
12"But you have profaned it, because you say, 'The table of the LORD is defiled, and its fruit, its food, is worth nothing.'"
13"You have also said, 'Look, what a weariness this is,' and you have sniffed at it," says the LORD of hosts. "You brought what was torn by beasts, and the lame, and the sick. That is the offering you brought. Should I accept that from your hand?" says the LORD.
14"But cursed is the cheat who has a male in his flock, and makes a vow, and then sacrifices to the Lord something spoiled. For I am a great King," says the LORD of hosts, "and my name is feared among the nations."