"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.

If ye offer the blind, is not that evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is not that evil? Yea offer it unto thy prince: shall he be content with thee, or accept thy person, sayeth the LORD of Hosts?

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.

For from the rising up of the sun unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles. Yea, in every place shall there sacrifice be done, and a clean meat offering offered up unto my name: for my name is great among the Heathen, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.

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.

Cursed be the dissembler, which hath in his flock one that is male, and when he maketh a vow, offereth a spotted one unto the LORD. For I am a great King, sayeth the LORD of Hosts, and my name is fearful among the Heathen.

For the priest's lips should be sure knowledge, that men may seek the law at his mouth, for he is a messenger of 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.

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 hath Judah offended: yea the abomination is done in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah hath defiled the Sanctuary of the LORD, which he loved, and hath kept the daughter of a strange God.

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.

And yet ye say, 'Wherefore?' Even because that whereas the LORD made a covenant betwixt thee and the wife of thy youth, thou hast despised her: Yet is she thine own companion and married wife.

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?

Who shall endure in the day of his coming, or who shall stand to behold him? For he is as trying fire, and as the herb that fullers scour withal.

And he shall sit trying and purging silver, and shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall fine them as gold and silver. And they shall bring offering unto the LORD of righteousness.

And the sacrifice of Judah and of Jerusalem shall be delicious unto the LORD as in the old time and in the years that were at the beginning.

Should a man use falsity and deceit with God, as ye use falsity and deceit with me? Yet ye say, 'Wherein use we deceit with thee?' In tithes and heave offerings.

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?

But they that fear God, say thus one to another, 'The LORD considereth and heareth it. Yea, it is before him a memorial book, written for such as fear the LORD, and remember his name.'

And in the day that I will make, sayeth the LORD of Hosts, they shall be mine own possession: and I will favour them, like as a man favoureth his own son, that doth him service.

Turn you therefore, and consider what difference is betwixt the righteous and ungodly: betwixt him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.

For mark, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea and all such as do wickedness, shall be straw: and the day that is for to come, shall burn them up, sayeth the LORD of Hosts, so that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear my name, shall the Son of righteousness arise, and health shall be under his wings: ye shall go forth, and multiply as the fat calves.