Malachi 2
1 And now, O priests, this commandment
is to you. 2 If ye will not hearken,
and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory to
my name, saith the Lord Almighty, then I will send forth the curse upon you,
and I will bring a curse upon your blessing: yea, I will curse it, and I will
scatter your blessing, and it shall not exist among you, because ye lay not
this to heart. 3 Behold,
aGr. separate the shoulder from you.I turn my back upon you, and I will scatter dung upon your faces, the dung of
your feasts, and I will carry you away at the same time.
4 And ye shall know that I have sent
this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with the sons of Levi,
saith the Lord Almighty.
5 My covenant of life and peace was
with him, and I gave
bOr, power, or, charge to fear me, etc.it him that he might reverently fear me, and that he
might
cSee 2 Cor. 8. 20.be awe-struck at my name. 6 The law
of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked
before me directing his way in peace, and he turned
many from unrighteousness. 7 For the
priest's lips
dGr. shall.should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is
the messenger of the Lord Almighty.
8 But ye have turned aside from the
way, and caused many to fail in following the law: ye
have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord Almighty.
9 And I have made you despised and
cast out among all the people, because ye have not kept my ways, but have
eGr. accepted persons.been partial in the law.
10 Have ye not all one father? Did
not one God create you? why have ye forsaken every man his brother, to profane
the covenant of your fathers?
11 Juda has been forsaken, and an
abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Juda has
profaned the holy things of the Lord, which he delighted in, and has gone
after other gods. 12 The Lord will
utterly destroy the man that does these things, until he be even cast down
from out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and from among them that offer sacrifice
to the Lord Almighty. 13 And these
things which I hated, ye did: ye covered with tears the altar of the Lord, and
with weeping and groaning because of troubles:
is it meet for me to have
respect to your sacrifice, or to receive
anything from your hands
as welcome?
14 Yet ye said, Wherefore? Because
the Lord has borne witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, whom thou
hast forsaken, and yet she was thy partner, and the
wife of thy covenant. 15 And did he
not do well? and there was the residue of his spirit.
But ye said, What does God seek but a seed? But take ye heed to your spirit,
and forsake not the wife of thy youth.
16 But if thou shouldest hate
thy wife and put her away, saith the Lord God of
Israel, then ungodliness shall cover thy thoughts, saith the Lord Almighty:
therefore take ye heed to your spirit, and forsake
them not,
17 ye that have provoked God with
your words. But ye said, Wherein have we provoked him? In that ye say, Every
one that does evil is a pleasing object in the sight
of the Lord, and he takes pleasure in such;
fOr, and, Where, etc.and where is the God of justice?