6. "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the LORD Almighty. "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. "But you ask, `How have we shown contempt for your name?'
7. "You place defiled food on my altar. "But you ask, `How have we defiled you?' "By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible.
8. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the LORD Almighty.
9. "Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?"--says the LORD Almighty.
10. Have we not all one Father ? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
11. Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.
12. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob --even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.
13. Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.
14. You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
15. Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
16. "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.
6. "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
7. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, `How are we to return?'
8. "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, `How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
9. You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me.
10. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
4. "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
5. "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. S
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