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Chapter 1
Here follows burden of the Lord's doom for Israel, that was entrusted to Malachias.
Oh, but I have dealt lovingly with you! the Lord says. Would you know, wherein I shewed my love? This tell me; was not Esau brother to Jacob? Yet to Jacob I proved myself a friend, the Lord says, no friend to Esau; I have made a waste of yonder mountain-side, of all his lands a dragon-haunted desert. Ay, but, says Edom, what if we have fallen on evil days? Give us time to repair the ruins! Trust me, says the Lord of hosts, as fast as they build, I will pull down; land of rebellion men shall call it, brood the Lord hates, and for ever. Glad sight, to make you cry God praise from end to end of Israel!
Son to father, servant to master gives his due. Your father I, where is the honour, your master I, where is the reverence you owe me? Such complaint the Lord of hosts makes, and to whom? To you, priests, that care so little for my renown. Ask you what care was lacking, when the bread you offer at my altar is defiled, ask you what despite you have done me, when you write down the Lord's table a thing of little moment? What, no harm done, when victim you offer in sacrifice is blind? No harm done, when it is lame or diseased? Pray you, says the Lord of hosts, make such a gift to the governor yonder, will he be content? Will he make favourites of you?
Ay, says the Lord of hosts, the guilt is yours. To the divine presence betake you, and sue for pardon; which of you finds favour with him? Never a man of you but must be paid to shut door, light altar-fire; no friends of mine, says the Lord of hosts, no gifts will I take from such as you. No corner of the world, from sun's rise to sun's setting, where the renown of me is not heard among the Gentiles, where sacrifice is not done, and pure offering made in my honour; so revered is my name, says the Lord of hosts, there among the Gentiles; and you? That you should hold it so cheap! That you should think to yourselves, The Lord's table is desecrated now; it makes no matter what food lies there, or what fire burns it! Weary work, say you, and dismiss it with a sigh. Beast mangled, beast gone lame, beast that is ailing you present to me, and the bloodless offering with it. And should the Lord of hosts accept the gift you make him?
Cursed be the knavery that offers the Lord gelt beast, when vows are a-paying, and all the while there is an entire beast left at home! Offers it to the Lord of hosts, the great King, no name in all the world so terrible!
Chapter 2
It is for you, priests, to see that this law of mine is obeyed. Give me neither heed nor hearing, says the Lord of hosts, let my name go unhonoured, and with sore distress I will visit you; falls my curse on all the blessings you enjoy, falls my curse..., to the punishing of your heedlessness. Arm of yours I will strike motionless, bury your faces in dung, ay, the dung of your own sacrifices, and to the dung-pit you shall go. So you shall learn your lesson; my law I gave you, says the Lord of hosts, in token of my covenant with Levi's family. Live they should and thrive, but the fear of me I enjoined upon them; none but should fear, and hold my name in reverence. Faithfully they handed on tradition, the lie never on their lips; safe and straight was the path they trod at my side, and kept many from wrongdoing. No utterance like a priest's for learning; from no other lips men will expect true guidance; is he not a messenger to them from the Lord of hosts? That path you have forsaken; through your ill teaching, how many a foothold lost! Nay, says the Lord of hosts, you have annulled my covenant with Levi altogether. What wonder if I have made you a laughing-stock, a thing contemptible in all men's sight, priests that so ill kept my command, gave award so partially?
Have we not all one Father, did not one God create us all? No room, then, for brother to despise brother, and unmake the covenant by which our fathers lived.
Here is great wrong in Juda, here are foul deeds done by Israel and Jerusalem! Juda, that was once content to be set apart for the Lord, has profaned that holy estate; has taken wives that worship a god he knew not. Doer of such a deed, set he or followed the ill example, shall be lost to the dwelling-place of Jacob, for all his offerings made to the Lord of hosts. And anon: weeping and wailing, you drench the Lord's altar with your tears! What marvel if I heed your sacrifices no more, gift yours is none can appease me? And the reason of it? Because the Lord bears witness to her wrongs, that wife of your manhood's age, whom now you spurn, your partner, your covenanted bride! Yet doer of this is the same man as ever, the will of him is unchanged; he asks nothing better now as before, than to breed a God-fearing race; to that will, men of Juda, keep true. Spurn her not, the wife of your manhood's age; what though the God of Israel gives you leave to send her away if she suits you ill? Garment of her, says the Lord of hosts, is yet stained with the wrong you did her. Will of yours forgo not, wife of yours spurn not.
Oh, but the Lord is aweary of your doings! And little wonder, when you think so amiss of him; telling yourselves, Foul is fair in the Lord's sight, and wrong-doing well likes him; God that judges us is none.
Chapter 3
See where I am sending an angel of mine, to make the way ready for my coming! All at once the Lord will visit his temple; that Lord, so longed for, welcome herald of a divine covenant. Ay, says the Lord of hosts, he is coming; but who can bear the thought of that advent? Who will stand with head erect at his appearing? He will put men to a test fierce as the crucible, searching as the lye that fullers use. From his judgement-seat, he will refine that silver of his and cleanse it from dross; like silver or gold, the sons of Levi must be refined in the crucible, ere they can offer the Lord sacrifice duly performed. Then once more the Lord will accept the offerings of Juda and Jerusalem, as he did long since, in the forgotten years. Come I to hold assize, not slow to arraign the sorcerer, the adulterer, the forsworn, all of you that deny hired man his wages, widow and orphan redress, the alien his right, fearing no vengeance from the Lord of hosts.
In me, the Eternal, there is no change, and you, sons of Jacob, are a people still. What though you have refused my claims, left them unhonoured, as your fathers did before you? Nay, says the Lord of hosts, you have but to relent towards me, and I, in my turn, will relent. Would you know the manner of it, bethink you that it is not for man to wrong God, as you wrong me; out of all question you wrong me, over your tithes and first-fruits. Ay, here is sworn conspiracy; it is myself you wrong, the whole brood of you! Do but carry your tithe into the tithe-barn, for my temple's needs, and see if I do not open the windows of heaven for you, rain down blessing to your hearts content! Ban of mine shall fall on the locust, and to your crops he shall do no harm; nowhere in all your countryside, I promise you, shall vine cast its fruits; the envy of all nations you shall be, says the Lord of hosts, a land of content.
And now, says the Lord of hosts, your complaints have had their way with me. Complain you did: Who serves God serves him for nothing; what reward is ours for keeping command of his, attending with sad mien the Lord of hosts? Here are proud folk more to be envied than we, ill-doers that yet thrive, abusers of his patience that escape all harm! So they used to talk among themselves, his true worshippers, till at last the Lord gave them heed and hearing; and now he would have a record kept in his presence of all that so worshipped him, all that prized his renown. Dear they shall be to me, says the Lord of hosts, when I declare myself at last; never to loyal son was father more gracious; then you shall think better of it, and know them apart, the just that serve God and the sinners that are none of his.
Chapter 4
Trust me, a day is coming that shall scorch like a furnace; stubble they shall be before it, says the Lord of hosts, all the proud, all the wrong-doers, caught and set alight, and neither root nor branch left them. But to you that honour my name there shall be a sunrise of restoration, swift-winged, bearing redress; light-hearted as frisking calves at stall you shall go out to meet it, ay, and trample on your godless enemy, ashes, now, to be spurned under foot, on that day when the Lord of hosts declares himself at last.
Yours to keep the law ever in mind, statute and award I gave to assembled Israel through Moses, that was my servant. And before ever that day comes, great day and terrible, I will send Elias to be your prophet; he it is shall reconcile heart of father to son, heart of son to father; else the whole of earth should be forfeit to my vengeance.