MALACHI.

I. The charge of the word of the Lord to Israel by the ministry of his messenger. Lay it up in your hearts I beseech you.

2 1 have loved you, saith the Lord. But you said, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau the brother of Jacob? saith

3 the Lord : yet I loved Jacob and slighted Esau and made his borders a waste, and the houses of a desert his inheritance.

4 For should he say, " Idumea is overthrown, let us return and build up the waste cities." Thus saith the Lord Almighty, Let them build, but I will overturn. They shall indeed be surnamed, " The borders of iniquity" and " A people to

5 whom the Lord hath ever been opposed." And your eyes shall

VOL, III. 3 I

see and you will say, " The Lord is magnified far beyond the borders of Israel."

6 A son honoureth a father; and a servant, his master. Now if I be a father, where is my honour? And if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord Almighty.

As for you priests, you are they who bring dishonour Oh my name. Do you say, By what have we brought dishonour

7 on thy name? By offering on mine altar polluted loaves. And do you say, How have we polluted them? When you said,

8 The table of the Lord is polluted, you then caused no regard to be paid to that which was to be laid thereon. Since, if you offer the blind for sacrifices, it is not evil; and if you offer the lame or sickly, it is not evil. Offer such now to thy governor, will

9 he admit thee? Will he accept thy person? saith the Lord Almighty. Now then do you conciliate the favour of your God when you supplicate him? When such [offerings] are made by your hands, shall I for your sakes accept your persons? saith

10 the Lord Almighty. Since by you the doors will be shut, and a fire will not be kindled on mine altar for nothing, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord Almighty; nor will I accept

11 a sacrifice at your hands. Since from the risings of the sun to its goings down my name hath been glorified among the nations; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a

12 pure sacrifice—since my name is great among the nations, saith the Lord Almighty, and you profane it, by your saying,

13 " The table of the Lord is polluted," and when no regard was paid to the offerings laid thereon—his meats, you said, "These are because of affliction," and though I rejected them, saith the Lord Almighty, yet you offered the torn, the lame and the sickly; if then you bring this sacrifice shall I accept such at

14 your hands, saith the Lord Almighty, when he is cursed, who is of ability and who hath a male in his flock and his vow upon him, and sacrificcth to the Lord a corrupted thing?

Because I am a great king, saith the Lord Almighty and

II. my name is illustrious among the nations, now therefore

2 this command is for you, O priests. If you will not hearken and

if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, saith the

Lord Almighty, I will send that curse against you and curse

your blessing. I will curse it; and disperse your blessing and it shall not be among you because you do not lay this to

3 heart. Behold I set apart for you the shoulder, now I will scatter the great intestine on your faces—the great intestine of your

4 festivals and take you to it. Now you must know, since I sent this command to you to be my covenant with the Levites, saith

5 the Lord Almighty, that my covenant of life and peace was with him; and I gave it to him that I might be greatly feared

6 and that he might be awed at my name. The law of truth was in his mouth; and iniquity should not have been found in his lips. Walking uprightly with me in peace, he indeed turned

7 many from iniquity. Because the lips of a priest were to keep knowledge therefore law was to be sought from his mouth;

8 since he is a messenger of the Lord Almighty: but as for you, you have turned aside out of the way and weakened many by law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord

9 Almighty, therefore I have made you contemptible and outcasts among all the nations, because you did not keep my ways, but in law have had respect to persons.

10 Have you not all one father? Hath not one God created you? Why then have you forsaken every one his brother? For profaning the covenant of your fathers, Juda was forsaken,

11 There was indeed abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Juda profaned the holy things of the Lord in which he

12 delighted and studiously went after strange gods. The Lord will cut off the man who doth such things until he be humbled from the dwellings of Jacob and from among them who offer a sacrifice to the Lord Almighty.

13 Moreover you have done those things which I hate. You have covered the altar of the Lord with tears. And amidst lamentations and groans for oppression is it still proper to look

14 upon a sacrifice,or receive it acceptably at your hands? And do you say, Why not? Because God was a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth whom thou hast forsaken, though

15 she was thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. Now did not he who had the residue of spirit, do right? Yet you have said, " What else but a seed doth God require?" But keep this in your mind, " Thou must not forsake the wife of thy youth."

(a) " But if thou having hated shah put awaysaith the Lord God of Israel."

(b) And will impiety, saith the Lord Almighty put a cloak over thy lusts? Therefore keep this in your mind, "You must not forsake.'*.

17 You have provoked God with your sayings. And do you ask, By what have we provoked him? By your saying, " Every one doing evil doth that which is good in the sight of the Lord." Now were he well pleased with such; where then is the God of Righteousness?

III. Behold I am about to send my messenger and he will examine the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek—even the angel of the covenant whom you desire will come suddcn-

2 ly to his temple. Behold he is coming, saith the Lord Almighty. And who can abide the day of his coming? Or who can stand his appearance? Since he is coming like the fire of

3 a refiner's furnace; and like the soap of the fullers. He will refining and purifying and will purify the sons of Levi like the silver and gold, and melt them like the gold and silver.

4 Then shall they offer to the Lord a sacrifice in righteousness and the sacrifice of Juda and Jerusalem will please the Lord as

5 in the days of old and as in former years. And I will bring to judgment before you and be a swift witness against sorcerers, and against adulteresses, and against them who swear by my name to a falsehood, and against them who deprive the hireling of his wages, and them who oppress the widow, and them who buffet the fatherless, and them who turn aside the cause of the stranger, and them who do not fear me, saith the Lord Al-

6 mighty. Because I the Lord am your God and change not; but you the sons of Jacob do not abstain from the iniquities

7 of your fathers—you have turned aside my statutes and have not kept them: turn to me and I will turn to you, saith the Lord Almighty. Do you say, Wherein shall we turn?

8 Will a man supplant God? For you supplant me: and will

9 you say, wherein have we supplanted thee? Because the tythes and the first fruits are with you, and you view them again and again and supplant me.

10 The year is ended and you have carried the products into

(a) The objection, (b) The answer.

your stores. Now let that which hath been plundered from him be in his house. Turn now in this respect, saith the Lord Almighty: (see) if I will not open for you the flood gates of heaven and pour my blessing upon you, until there is enough;

11 and send you it for food and no more destroy the fruit of your land; so that your vine shall no more be sickly in the field,

12 saith the Lord Almighty, and all the nations will hail you happy: for you will be a beloved land, saith the Lord Almighty.

13 You have brought heavy accusations against me, saith the Lord.

Do you say, in what instance have we spoken against thee?

14 You say, "Vain is he who serveth God: and what advantage is it, that we have kept his charges. For though we have walk-

15 ed as supplicants before the Lord Almighty, yet we now call

itrangers happy; and all that do unlawful things are built up. Though they opposed God; yet they are saved."

16 Against these things they who feared the Lord spoke to one another; and the Lord hearkened and heard and wrote a book of remembrance before him for them who fear the Lord and revere his name.

17 And they shall be, saith the Lord Almighty, an acquisition for me, on the day which I make; and I will make choice of

18 them, as a man maketh choice of a son who serveth him. And when you shall be converted, you shall see the difference between a righteous man and one who is unrighteous; and be-

IV. tween him who serveth God and him who serveth not. For behold a day is coming, heated like an oven, which shall set them on fire. And all aliens and all workers of iniquity shall be like stubble. The day which is coming shall blaze upon them, saith the Lord Almighty, and of them neither root nor branch

2 shall be left. But to you who fear my name the son of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth and leap for joy like young bullocks loosed from yokes.

."> And you shall trample down the wicked, for they will be like ashes under your feet, on the day which I make, saith the Lord Almighty.

5 Now behold I will send you Elias the Thesbite before that

<> great and awful day of the Lord cometh; who will turn the heart of father to son and the heart of one man to another that I may not come and smite the land with utter destruction.

4 Remember the law of Moses my servant, as I gave him in

charge at Choreb statutes and rules of rectitude for all Israel.

END OF THE OLD COVENANT.

NOTE.

Zacharias IX. I. A Burden.'] This, and the five following Chapters, though added to what Zacharias wrote, appear evidently, from the style and subjects, to be the work of another. The Evangelist' Matthew^ in his quotation, (Chap. II.) ascribes them to jferemias. And it must be allowed that the. contents of these chapters agree well with the time of Jeremias, but by no means with that of Zacharias. And the same may be said with respect to the style, which corresponds with that of jferemias, but not in the least with that of Zacharias. From the words of the Evangelist it would appear, that in his time, they were considered as being written by Jeremias:—and it is to be observed that in some ancient manuscripts, there is a large vacant space between the end of Chap. VIII. and IX. to distinguish what precedes, from that which follows.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER.

THE -words printed in italics in this Translation, are not added by the Translator, as in our common version; but are thus designated, as being emphatical. Such, as have been added, are included in [ ].

Names of Persons and Places mentioned in the Old Testament are spelled as in the Septuagint; and in the position of chapters, and parts of chapters, the order observed in that version, has, in general, been strictly attended to : there are, however, a very few deviations from this rule, "which the sense and connection seemed to require; but the numbers annexed to such chapters and verses -willpoint out their relative situation in the Greek: an instance of this kind occurs in Job, XL. and XLII. and in the position and arrangement of the chapters or discourses of Jeremias, from chapter XX. to XLVI.

The number of the chapters and verses, (so far as it was thought necessary to retain them) are inserted for the sake of those who may wish to compare this Translation with that in common use.

The following Errata have been observed, which the reader is requested to correct with his pen:

Deut. 14. 11.For vulureread vulture.
1. Kings, 4. 16. 3. 14. 33. 4. 21. 9.came the from eight kearkenedcame from the. eighth, heartened.
1. Chron. 24. 5. 2. 13. 2.pressnce daugter thempresence, daughter, him.
36. 5.
Psalm 93. 1.commendedcommenced.
Job, 1. 18. Eccl. 12. 1.thy daughters thoughtfulnessthy sons and thy daughters, thoughtlessness.