Malachi Chapter 2

Warning to Priests

¹ “Priests, I’m talking to you. ² If you don’t get serious about honoring me, I’ll put a curse on you and even curse the blessings you receive. Actually, I already have, because you’re not taking me seriously. ³ I’ll bring misfortune on your descendants and spatter your faces with the offal from your feasts. I’ll throw you out with it. ⁴ You’ll find out that I’m the One that sent this commandment so my covenant with Levi can continue. ⁵ My covenant with him gives life and peace. I gave it to him so he’d show me reverence, and he did ⁶ and gave true instruction. He followed me in peace and goodness, and turned people back from sin. ⁷ A priest should preserve knowledge, and people should look to him for instruction because he’s a messenger from the LORD of Hosts. ⁸ But you’ve gone off-road and made people stumble with your instruction; you’ve corrupted my covenant with Levi. ⁹ So people despise you because you show favoritism in how you execute the Law.”            

Mal 2:1-9

Judah Profaned the Covenant

¹⁰ “Don’t we all have the same Father? Hasn’t the same God created us? Why are we unfaithful to one another and violate our ancestors’ covenant? ¹¹ Judah has been unfaithful and created an abomination in Israel and Jerusalem. He’s profaned the sanctuary the LORD loves and married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹² May the LORD cut off from Jacob anyone who does that and then tries to present him an offering.

¹³ “Another thing you do is cover the LORD’s altar with tears, weeping, and groaning because he doesn’t accept your offerings anymore.”

¹⁴ “You ask, ‘Why?’

“Because he’s seen how unfaithful you’ve been to the wife you’ve had from your youth though she’s your partner, your wife by covenant. ¹⁵ Nobody does that who has even an ounce of the spirit and wants godly offspring; so pay attention to your spirit so you won’t be unfaithful to her. ¹⁶ I despise divorce and the one that tries to cover up his adultery with cruelty by divorcing his wife.”

A Day of Judgment

¹⁷ “You’ve worn the LORD out with your talk.

“How?”

“By saying, ‘People that sin are as good in his sight as anybody else; he delights in them’; or ‘Where’s there a just God?’”           

Mal 2:10-17