If Edom says, "We are shattered, but we will return and rebuild [the] ruins," Yahweh of hosts says this: "They may build, but I will tear down; and they will be called a territory of wickedness, and the people [with] whom Yahweh is angry forever."

Your eyes will see [this], and you will say, "Yahweh is great beyond the borders of Israel."

When you offer a blind [animal] for sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer [the] lame and the one who is ill, is that not wrong? Present it, please, to your governor! Will he be pleased with you? {Will he show you favor}?" says Yahweh of hosts.

So then, {implore the favor of God} so that he will be gracious to us. "{This is what you have done}. {Will he show favor to any of you}?" says Yahweh of hosts.

"Who also among you will shut [the temple] doors [so that] you will not kindle fire in vain [on] my altar? I take no pleasure in you," says Yahweh of hosts, "and {I will not accept} an offering from your hand.

If you will not listen, and if you will not {take it to heart} to give glory to my name," says Yahweh of hosts, "then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings; moreover I have [already] cursed them because {you are not taking it to heart}.

Look! I [am] going to rebuke {your offspring}, and I will scatter offal on your faces, [the] offal of your religious feasts, and you will be carried to it.

"Then you will know that I have sent to you this command, that my covenant with Levi {continues}," says Yahweh of hosts.

"Look! I [am] going to send my messenger, and he will prepare [the] way {before me}. And the Lord whom you [are] seeking will come suddenly to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant, [in] whom you [are] taking pleasure--look!--[he is] about to come," says Yahweh of hosts.

He will sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the children of Levi, and he will refine them like gold and like silver, and they will present to Yahweh offerings in righteousness.

And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to Yahweh, like [in the] days of old and like [in] former years.

"Then I will approach you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers, and against those who swear {falsely}, and against the oppressors of [the] hired worker [with his] wages, [the] widow and [the] orphan, and {the abusers of} [the] alien, and [yet] do not fear me," says Yahweh of hosts.

From the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my rules, and have not kept [them]! Return to me and I will return to you," says Yahweh of hosts, "but you say, 'How shall we return?'

Will a human [dare to] rob God? Yet you [are] robbing me! And you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In the tithes and the contributions!

Bring the whole tithe to {the storehouse}, so that there will be food in my house, and test me please in this," says Yahweh of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour forth for you {an overflowing blessing}.

I will rebuke the devourer for you; it will not destroy the fruit of your soil; your vine in the field will not be unfruitful," says Yahweh of hosts.

"And all the nations will call you blessed, because you will be {a land in which one takes joy}," says Yahweh of hosts.

"They will be mine," says Yahweh of hosts, "on the day that I [am] acting, [my] treasured possession. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.

You will return and see [the difference] between [the] righteous and [the] wicked, between [the one who] serves God and the one who does not serve him.

"For look! The day [is] about to come, burning like an oven, and all the arrogant and every {evildoer} will be stubble. The coming day will consume them," says Yahweh of hosts. "It will not leave behind for them root or branch.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like {fattened calves}.

You will trample down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I [am] going to act," says Yahweh of hosts.

And he will bring back [the] hearts of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the hearts of [the] sons to their fathers, so that I will not come and strike the land [with] a ban."