Malachi

11This is a serious message from Yahweh. Yahweh gave it to Malachi to tell to the Israelite people.

2Yahweh says to the Israelites, “I have shown that I love you.” They may wonder what I mean and ask, “How have you shown love to us?” Yahweh would reply, “Esau and Jacob were brothers. I chose to love Jacob and his descendants. 3But I did not favor Esau and his descendants. I turned Esau’s hill country into empty land. I let wild dogs live in the places where Esau’s people used to live.” 4The people of Edom, who are Esau’s descendants, might say, “Enemies have destroyed our towns, but we will rebuild them.” But Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says, “Even if they rebuild, I will tear down what they build. People will call Edom a land of evil people. They will say that Yahweh will always be angry with the people of Edom. 5You Israelites will see this happen. Then you will say, ‘Even outside the land of Israel, people know that Yahweh is great!’”

6Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says, “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. Since I am like a father to you, you should honor me, but you do not. Since I am your master, you should respect me, but you do not. I am saying this to you priests who do not respect me. You may wonder what I mean and ask, ‘How have we shown disrespect to you?’ 7You show disrespect by offering unacceptable sacrifices on my altar. You may wonder what I mean and ask, ‘How have we offered unacceptable sacrifices?’ I will tell you. You show disrespect by thinking that you can treat my altar with contempt. 8You bring blind animals to sacrifice to me. That is wrong. You bring animals that cannot walk or are sick. That is also wrong. If you gave animals like that to your governor, he would not be pleased with you, and he would not accept them.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. 9“But you are asking me, God, to be kind to you, even though you have done these wrong things. Do not think that I will accept you!” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. 10Yahweh. who commands the heavenly armies, says, “I wish one of you would close the temple doors. Then you would not light useless fires on my altar. I am not happy with you. I will not accept any offerings from you. 11People all over the world will respect me. In every place, people will burn incense to honor me and bring me pure offerings, because everyone will know how great I am.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. 12“But you dishonor me. You say that my altar is not important, and you do not value the food you get from it. 13You even say, ‘We are tired of doing this work!’ You show that you do not care about it.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. “You bring me animals that you stole, cannot walk, or are sick. If you bring these as offerings, do not think that I will accept them from you!” says Yahweh. 14“I will punish anyone who tries to cheat me. If someone promises to give me a good male animal from his flock but then gives me one that is not healthy, I will punish that person. After all, I am the great King. I am Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, and people all over the world respect me.”

21Yahweh says, “Now, priests, this command is for you. 2If you do not obey me and make sure that you honor me, I will curse you,” says Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies. “I will even curse the good things I have given you. In fact, I have already started to curse them, because you are not taking seriously what I have told you to do. 3I am ready to punish you by keeping you from having good harvests. You will be disgraced, as if I had spread animal waste on your faces, the waste from the animals you sacrifice at festivals. People will consider you as worthless as that waste! 4Then you will know that I gave you this command so that my agreement with the priests, the descendants of Levi, will continue.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. 5“I made a peaceful and life-giving agreement with them because they revered me, and they revered me greatly. 6They taught the people what was true, and they did not say things that were wrong. They lived peacefully and honestly, the way I wanted them to, and they helped many people stop doing bad things. 7After all, a priest should teach people how to know God better. People should learn from what the priest says, because he brings messages from me, Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies. 8But you priests have stopped living the way I want. Your teaching has caused many people to do wrong things. You have failed to keep the agreement I made with the Levite priests," says Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies. 9“So I have made people disrespect you and I have humiliated you before all the people. This is because you have not lived the way I want people to live. You have also not treated everyone fairly when you have applied my laws.”

10In a sense, we all have the same father, since the same God created each of us. So we should not break our promises to each other. If we do, we dishonor the agreement God made with our ancestors. 11The people of Judah have not been faithful to God. They have done terrible things in Israel and Jerusalem. They have dishonored the temple that Yahweh loves. They are worshiping foreign gods instead of Yahweh. 12I hope Yahweh will remove from among the people of Israel every single person who does this, even if they bring offerings to Yahweh, who is the commander of the heavenly armies. 13This is another thing you do: When you come to offer sacrifices at Yahweh’s altar, you weep bitterly. You cry and groan because Yahweh no longer accepts your offerings. 14You may wonder what I mean and ask, “Why does he not accept them?” It is because Yahweh knows that you have not been faithful to the wife you married as a young man. You did this even though she was your partner and you promised to be her husband. 15God has united husbands and wives so that they are one, and he has made their marriage a spiritual relationship. God made them one because he wants them to have children who are faithful to him. So be careful. Do not break your promise to the wife you married when you were a young man. 16Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, “I hate divorce. I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to your wife. So be careful. Do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says.

17Yahweh is tired of hearing what you have been saying. You may wonder what I mean and ask, “How have we made him tired?” You have made him tired by saying, “Yahweh thinks that people who do evil things are actually good. He is happy with them.” Yahweh is also tired of hearing you say, “God is not being fair!”

31Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says, “Pay attention! I am about to send my messenger. He will get things ready for me to come. Then I, the Lord you are looking for, will suddenly come to my temple. You want someone to bring you a message about my agreement with you, and I am going to send someone to do that. 2But when he does come, no one will be able to keep living the way they were living before. When he appears, he will not tell anyone that he is innocent. But he will purify people {from sin}, just as fire makes metal pure and soap makes clothes clean. 3He will help people stop sinning, just as a metalworker sits patiently near silver he has melted and keeps removing impurities from it. He will purify the descendants of Levi, just as a metalworker purifies gold and silver. Then they will bring proper offerings to Yahweh. 4After that, Yahweh will accept the offerings that the people of Judah and Jerusalem bring him, just as he did in ancient times.” 5Yahweh, who commands the armies of heaven, says, “I will come to judge you. I will immediately declare people guilty and punish them if they have practiced witchcraft, committed adultery, made false promises, not paid fair wages to their workers, or taken advantage of widows and orphans and foreigners. People have done those things because they did not think I would punish them{, but I will}.

6I will do this because I am Yahweh, and I {swore to Abraham that I would bless his descendants}. When I make a promise, I keep it. That is why you descendants of Jacob are still living here in Judea, even though you are disobeying me. 7Ever since the time of your ancestors, you have disobeyed my laws. You have completely ignored them. Now come back to me, and I will come back to you,” says Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies. “You may wonder what I mean and ask, ‘How can we come back to you?’ 8You might think that no one would even try to steal from God. But you are stealing from me! You may wonder what I mean and ask, ‘How are we stealing from you?’ You are stealing from me by not giving me the tithes and offerings that you should. 9Because you are robbing me in this way, I have put a curse on all of you Israelites. 10Bring all the tithes to the room in the temple where the priests keep contributions. Make sure there is food for the priests who serve in my temple. Try this and see what I do in response,” says Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies. “If you do this, then I will bless you so much that it will be as if I had opened windows in the sky and poured out blessings to you. You will not have enough room to store all of the crops that grow in your fields. 11I will prevent pests from eating your crops. Your grapevines will produce plenty of grapes,” says Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies. 12“Then people from all nations will say that God has blessed you. They will say that because your land will be a delightful place,” says Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies.

13Yahweh says, “You have said terrible things about me. You may wonder what I mean and ask, ‘What have we said about you?’ 14You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. We have not gained anything by obeying his commands or by showing Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, that we are sorry for our sins. 15We have come to think that proud people become prosperous. Even when people do bad things, they succeed. They challenge God by doing wicked things, but God does not punish them.’”

16Then those who honored Yahweh all spoke with one another. Yahweh listened carefully to what they said. Those who honored Yahweh and respected him all wrote their names down in a book as he watched. 17Then Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, said, “These people especially will belong to me. On the day when I judge people, I will spare them from punishment. I will treat them kindly, just as parents treat kindly the children who obey them. 18Then once more you will clearly see that righteous people do prosper while wicked people do not. There is that difference between those who obey God and those who disobey him.”

41Yahweh, the commander of the heavenly armies, says, “Pay attention! The time is coming when I am going to judge people. People will feel their guilt intensely, as if they were standing in front of a hot furnace. At that time, I will destroy all proud and wicked people as if they were straw burning in a fire. I will destroy them completely, just as a fire burns up plants from top to bottom. 2But those of you who honor me will experience my power saving you as if the sun were rising and bringing you warmth and light. By my power, I will heal you. You will be as happy as calves are when they leave their stalls to go and play out in the open fields. 3At the time when I do this, you will completely defeat every wicked person. It will be as if you are stomping them down with your feet.” This is what Yahweh, who commands the heavenly armies, says. 4“Remember to obey the laws that I gave to my servant Moses on Mount Sinai. Obey all the rules and regulations that I gave him for all the Israelite people to obey. 5Listen carefully! I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the grand and frightening day comes when I, Yahweh, will judge everyone. 6Because of his message, parents and children will love each other again. I am going to make this happen so that I will not have to come and curse your country.”