Edom says, "Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places." So the Lord who rules over all responds, "They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased.

You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, 'How have we offended you?' By treating the table of the Lord as if it is of no importance!

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.

May the Lord cut off from the community of Jacob every last person who does this, as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord who rules over all!

You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

Yet you ask, "Why?" The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law.

The offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in former times and years past.

"You have criticized me sharply," says the Lord, "but you ask, 'How have we criticized you?'

"They will belong to me," says the Lord who rules over all, "in the day when I prepare my own special property. I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.