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

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

"I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, 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 despicable.

Then you will know that I sent this commandment to you so that my covenant may continue to be with Levi," says the Lord who rules over all.

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

"Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse 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.

Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

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