I have loved you, says Jehovah. But you say, In what have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says Jehovah; yet I loved Jacob,

and I hated Esau and made his mountains a desolation, and his inheritance to be for the jackals of the wilderness.

If Edom says, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places. So says Jehovah of Hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them the region of wickedness, and the people with whom Jehovah is indignant forever.

A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My fear? says Jehovah of Hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. And you say, In what way have we despised Your name?

You offer defiled bread upon My altar; and you say, In what way have we defiled You? In your saying, The table of Jehovah, it is a thing to be despised.

And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Bring it now to your governor. Will he accept you, or lift up your face, says Jehovah of Hosts?

And now entreat the face of God, that He favor us. This has been by your hands, will He lift up your faces, says Jehovah of Hosts?

Who is even among you who will shut the doors, and you not kindle fire on My altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says Jehovah of Hosts. I will not be pleased with an offering from you.

But you are profaning it when you say, The table of Jehovah, it is polluted; and its fruit, His food, is to be despised.

You also said, Behold, what a weariness it is! And you have puffed at it, says Jehovah of Hosts. And you bring plunder, and the lame, and the sick, and you bring the food offering. Should I accept it from your hand, says Jehovah?

But cursed be a deceiver; and there is in his flock a male, yet he vows it, but sacrifices to Jehovah a blemished one. For I am a great king, says Jehovah of Hosts, and My name is feared among the nations.

And now, O priests, this command is for you.

My covenant with him was life and peace, and I gave them to him for fear; and he feared Me, and he is awed before My name.

For the priest's lips should guard knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of Hosts.

Therefore I have also made you despised and low before all the people, just as you have not kept My ways but are lifting up faces in the law.

Is there not one Father to us all? Has not one God created us? Why do we act deceitfully, each man with his brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers.

Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the holy place of Jehovah, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

And this is a second thing you have done, covering the altar of Jehovah with tears, weeping, and groaning, yet not facing toward the food offering, and taking it with delight from your hand.

Yet you say, Why? Because Jehovah has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your covenant wife.

And did He not make you one? Yet the vestige of the Spirit is in him. And what of the one? He was seeking a godly seed. Then guard your spirit, and do not act treacherously with the wife of your youth.

You have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet you say, In what have we wearied Him? When you say, Every evildoer is good in the eyes of Jehovah, and He delights in them; or, Where is the God of justice?

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.

And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may be offerers of a food offering in righteousness to Jehovah.

Then the food offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to Jehovah, as in the days of old and as in former years.

Bring all the tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. And test Me now with this, says Jehovah of Hosts, to see if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you, and pour out a blessing for you, until there is not enough room.

You have said, It is vain to serve God; and, What profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked as mourners before Jehovah of Hosts?

And they shall be Mine, says Jehovah of Hosts, for the day that I will make up My treasure. And I will pity them as a man has pity on his son who serves him.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like a fire pot; and all the proud, and every doer of wickedness, shall be chaff. And the coming day will set them ablaze, says Jehovah of Hosts, which will not leave root or branches to them.