"I have loved you," sayeth the LORD: And yet ye say, "Wherein hast thou loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" sayeth the LORD, "Yet have I loved Jacob,

and hated Esau: Yea I have made his hills waste, and his heritage a wilderness for dragons."

"Should not a son honour his father, and a servant his master? If I be now a father, where is mine honour? If I be the LORD, where am I feared? sayeth the LORD of Hosts, now, to you priests that despise my name. And if ye say, 'Wherein have we despised thy name?'

In this: that ye offer unclean bread upon mine altar. And if ye will say, 'Wherein have we offered any unclean thing unto thee?' In this that ye say: the altar of the LORD is not to be regarded.

And now make your prayer before God, that he may have mercy upon us: for such things have ye done. Shall he regard your persons, think ye, sayeth the LORD of Hosts?

Yea, what is he among you, that will do so much as to shut the doors, or to kindle the fire upon mine altar for naught? I have no pleasure in you, sayeth the LORD of Hosts: and as for the meat offering, I will not accept it at your hand.

But ye have unhallowed it, in that ye say, 'The altar of the LORD is not to be regarded, and the thing that is set thereupon, not worthy to be eaten.'

Now say ye, 'It is but labour and travail,' and thus have ye thought scorn at it, sayeth the LORD of Hosts; offering robbery, yea the lame and the sick. Ye have brought me in a meat offering? Should I accept it of your hand? sayeth the LORD.

And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you: that my covenant which I made with Levi, might stand, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.

But as for you, ye are gone clean out of the way, and have caused the multitude to be offended at the law: ye have broken the covenant of Levi, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.

Therefore will I also make you to be despised, and to be of no reputation among all the people: because ye have not kept my ways, but been partial in the law.

Have we not all one father? Hath not one God made us? Why doth every one of us then despise his own brother, and so break the covenant of our fathers?

Now have ye brought it to this point again, that the altar of the LORD is covered with tears, weeping, and mourning: so that I will no more regard the meat offering, neither will I receive or accept anything at your hands.

Ye grieve the LORD with your words, and yet ye say, 'Wherewithal have we grieved him?' In this, that ye say: 'All that do evil are good in the sight of God, and such please him.' Or else where is the God that punisheth?

"Ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and since the time of your forefathers have ye not kept them. Turn you now unto me, and I will turn me unto you, sayeth the LORD of Hosts. Ye say, 'Wherein shall we turn?'

Ye speak hard words against me, sayeth the LORD. And yet ye say, 'What have we spoken against thee?'

Ye have said, 'It is but lost labour, to serve God: What profit have we for keeping his commandments, and for walking humbly before the LORD of Hosts?