The Book of Malaki

1* The boding of Jehovah’s word to Israel by Malaki.

2 I loved you, says Jehovah. And you say “In what did you love us?” Was not ʽEsau brother to Jacob? quoth Jehovah; and I loved Jacob, 3* and ʽEsau I hated and made a desolation of his mountains and wilderness pastures of his estate. 4 Whereas Edom says “We have had our houses wrecked, but we shall come back and rebuild the ruins,” Jehovah of Armies says “They will build, but I will demolish; and they will be called ‘Wrong Side Precinct’ and ‘the people to whom Jehovah is hostile forever’; 5 and your eyes will see it and you will say ‘Jehovah proves great beyond the boundary of Israel.’”

6 Son honors father, and servant his master. Then if I am a father where is my honor, and if I am a master where is my fear? says Jehovah of Armies to you priests, despisers of my name—and you say “In what have we despised your name?” 7 You bring polluted food up to my altar—and you say “In what have we polluted you?” In your saying “Jehovah’s table is of no account.” 8 And when you bring on a blind creature for sacrificing, it is no harm! and when you bring on a lame one, it is no harm! Present it to your governor! will he be conciliated, or do favors for you?—says Jehovah of Armies. 9 And now propitiate Deity that he may be gracious to us; this came from your hands—will he favor any of you? says Jehovah of Armies. 10 Ah, and O for one among you to shut the doors so that you should not light up my altar for nothing! I have no liking for you, says Jehovah of Armies, and will not accept offerings from your hands. 11* For from utmost east to utmost west my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered up to my name, and pure offerings; for my name is great among the nations, says Jehovah of Armies; 12 but you profane it by saying “Jehovah’s table is polluted and the eating of its yield is unsatisfactory.” 13* And you say “O, the tiresomeness!” and pooh-pooh me, says Jehovah of Armies; and you bring stolen property and the lame and the sick, and bring it as an offering; am I to accept it from your hands? says Jehovah. 14* But cursed is a schemer who, when there is a male in his flock and he vows it, sacrifices a mutilated creature to the Lord; for I am a great king, says Jehovah of Armies, and my name is terrible among the nations.

2* And now this message is to you priests. 2 If you do not listen and do not pay attention, giving glory to my name, says Jehovah of Armies, I will send the curse upon you and curse your blessings; and cursed it I have, too, because you are not paying attention. 3* Here I am rebuking the seed for you and will sprinkle offal on your faces, the offal from your feasts, and they shall carry you to it. 4** And you shall know that I have sent this message to you to have my covenant be with Levi, says Jehovah of Armies. 5* My covenant with him was life and well-being, and I gave them to him; fear, and he feared me, and he was in terror at my name. 6 Trustworthy rulings were in his mouth and dishonesty was never found on his lips; he walked with me staunchly and straightforwardly, and turned many back from offending. 7 For a priest’s lips are to keep knowledge, and they seek rulings from his mouth, because he is the messenger of Jehovah of Armies. 8 But you have quitted the road, you have brought many to a fall by rulings; you have wrecked Levi’s covenant, says Jehovah of Armies, 9* and I on my part have made your status low and despised by all the people, in harmony with your not keeping my ways and favoring persons in rulings.

10 Do we not all have one father? did not one Deity create us? how is it we are faithless to our brothers, nullifying our fathers’ covenant? 11* Judah has acted faithlessly, and an abominable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has nullified Jehovah’s sanctities which he loves and has married a foreign deity’s daughter. 12* Jehovah deprive the man who does it of waker and answerer in Jacob’s tents, and of offerer to Jehovah of Armies.

13* And this second thing you do, covering Jehovah’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning, beyond any more possibility of facing toward the offering or having satisfaction from your hands. 14 And you say “On what account?” On account of Jehovah’s having borne witness between you and the wife of your youth, toward whom you have broken faith, though she is your consort and your contracted spouse. 15* And did he not make one, though he had a remainder of breath? and what was the one aiming at? posterity of God. But be on your guard as to your spirits, and let one not break faith toward the wife of his youth. 16** For Israel’s God Jehovah hates divorce, and outrage covers his garment, says Jehovah of Armies. But be on your guard as to your spirits and do not break faith.

17 You have made it hard for Jehovah with your words. And you say “In what have we made it hard?” In your saying “Everybody that does bad things pleases Jehovah, he has a fancy for them—or where is the God of justice?”

3 Here I am sending my messenger who shall clear a road before me, and suddenly the Lord, whom you are seeking for, will come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you are wishing for, here he comes, says Jehovah of Armies. 2 But who will hold out through the day of his coming? or who will stand at his appearing? for he is like a smelter’s fire and like washermen’s alkali, 3* and he will sit smelting and purifying silver, and purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will be rightly offering-presenters of Jehovah’s, 4 and the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be sweet to Jehovah as in days of yore and as in olden years; and 5* I will draw near you for judgment, and will be an expeditious witness against the wizards and adulterers and perjurers and those who fail to pay the wages of a hired man and to allow the rights of a widow and an orphan, and who warp a decision in an immigrant’s case, and do not fear me, says Jehovah of Armies. 6 For I Jehovah have not changed, and you sons of Jacob have not come to an end.

7 From your fathers’ days you have gone away from my usages and not kept them: come back to me and I will come back to you, says Jehovah of Armies. And you say “Come back in what respect?” 8* Is man to shave down God? for you are shaving me down. And you say “Shaving you down in what respect?” The tithe and the contribution you neglect, 9 and me you shave down, the whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithe to the storehouse so there will be provisions in my house, and test me by this, says Jehovah of Armies, whether I will not open the hatchways of the sky for you and empty out for you more of a blessing than you have any use for; 11 and I will rebuke the eater for you, and you shall not have him spoiling the crops of the soil, nor shall you have the grapevines losing their fruit in the fields, says Jehovah of Armies. 12 And all the nations will congratulate you, because you will be a delightful country, says Jehovah of Armies.

13 You have used strong language against me, says Jehovah. And you say “What language have we used against you?” 14 You have said “Worshiping God does not amount to anything; and what do we get out of it that we have kept his charge and gone in mourning because of Jehovah of Armies? 15** And now we are having to congratulate presumptuous people; yes, misdoers make fortunes; yes, they put God to the test and come off safe.” 16* Thus did those who fear Jehovah talk to each other; and Jehovah listened and heard it, and a commemorative book was written before him for those who fear Jehovah and those who give consideration to his name. 17 And, says Jehovah of Armies, they shall on the day when I take action be for me a special reserve, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him; 18 and you will come back to seeing the difference between a right-doer and a wrong-doer, between a worshiper and a non-worshiper of Jehovah.

4 For here comes the day, burning like a baking-crock; and all presumptuous people and all wrong-doers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says Jehovah of Armies, so that it will not leave them root nor branch; 2 but for you fearers of my name a sun of right will rise, with healing in its wings, and you will go out and gambol like calves out of a pen, 3 and tread the life out of the wicked, for they will be ashes under your feet on the day when I take action, says Jehovah of Armies.

4 Remember my servant Moses’s instructions that I charged him with at Horeb for all Israel, usages and laws. 5 Here, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the coming of Jehovah’s great and terrible day, 6 and he will bring fathers’ hearts back to children and children’s back to their fathers, for fear I should come and strike the country with doom.

MARGINAL NOTES TO MALAKI