1 “And now this decree is for you, O priests: 2 If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to honor My name,” says the LORD of Hosts, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already begun to curse them, because you are not taking it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the waste from your feasts, and you will be carried off with it. 4 Then you will know that I have sent you this commandment so that My covenant with Levi may continue,” says the LORD of Hosts. 5 “My covenant with him was one of life and peace, which I gave to him; it called for reverence, and he revered Me and stood in awe of My name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the LORD of Hosts. 8 But you have departed from the way, and your instruction has caused many to stumble. You have violated the covenant of Levi,” says the LORD of Hosts. 9 “So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.” 10 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why then do we break faith with one another so as to profane the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has broken faith; an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the LORD’s beloved sanctuary by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, may the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who is awake and aware—even if he brings an offering to the LORD of Hosts. 13 And this is another thing you do: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer regards your offerings or receives them gladly from your hands. 14 Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “He who divorces his wife covers his garment with violence,” says the LORD of Hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith. 17 You have wearied the LORD w…
Malachi 2:1–17
Semantically similar passages
Jeremiah 25:7–9
7 ‘But to your own harm, you have not listened to Me,’ declares the LORD, ‘so you have provoked Me to anger with the works of your hands.’ 8 Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, 9 behold, I will summon all the families…
Malachi 3:12–14
12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight,” says the LORD of Hosts. 13 “Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ 14 You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What hav…
Nehemiah 13:28–30
28 Even one of the sons of Jehoiada son of Eliashib the high priest had become a son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I drove him away from me. 29 Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and of… 30 …
Jeremiah 3:19–21
19 Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me. 20 But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betra…
1 Samuel 2:29–31
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Ezekiel 44:7–9
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Malachi 3:8–10
8 Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. T…
Malachi 4:5–6
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land wit…
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