Malachi 1

¹ An oracle. The word of Yahweh to Israel through the ministry of Malachi.[*a]

² I have shown my love for you, says Yahweh. But you ask, ‘How have you shown your love?’ Was not Esau[*b] Jacob’s brother? – it is Yahweh who speaks; yet I showed my love for Jacob

³ and my hatred for Esau. I turned his towns into a wilderness and his heritage into desert pastures.

⁴ Should Edom say, ‘We have been struck down but we will rebuild our ruins’, this is the reply of Yahweh Sabaoth: Let them build! I will pull down. They shall be known as Unholy Land and Nation-with-which-Yahweh-is-angry-for-ever.

⁵ Your eyes are going to see this and you will say, ‘Yahweh is mighty beyond the borders of Israel’.

⁶ The son honours his father, the slave respects his master. If I am indeed father, where is my honour? If I am indeed master, where is my respect? Yahweh Sabaoth asks this of you, priests, you who despise my name. You ask, ‘How have we despised your name?’

⁷ By putting polluted food on my altar. You ask, ‘How have we polluted it?’ By holding the table of Yahweh in contempt.

⁸ When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you bring the lame and the diseased, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your high commissioner, and see if he is pleased with this or receives you graciously, says Yahweh Sabaoth.

⁹ Now try pleading with God to take pity on us (this is your own fault); do you think he will receive you graciously? says Yahweh Sabaoth.

¹⁰ Oh, is there no one among you who will shut the doors and stop you from lighting useless fires on my altar? I am not pleased with you, says Yahweh Sabaoth; from your hands I find no offerings acceptable.

¹¹ But from farthest east to farthest west my name is honoured among the nations and everywhere a sacrifice of incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering too, since my name is honoured among the nations, says Yahweh Sabaoth.

¹² But you, you profane it by thinking of the Lord’s table as defiled and by holding in contempt the food placed on it.

¹³ ‘How tiresome it all is!’ you say; and you sniff disdainfully at me, says Yahweh Sabaoth. You bring a stolen, lame or diseased animal, you bring that as an offering! Am I to accept this from your hand? says Yahweh Sabaoth.

¹⁴ Cursed be the rogue who owns a male which he has vowed to offer from his flock, and instead sacrifices a blemished animal to me! For I am a great king, says Yahweh Sabaoth, and my name is feared throughout the nations.