Malachi 1:7
1:7 You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table 1 of the Lord as if it is of no importance!
Malachi 2:5
2:5 “My covenant with him was designed to bring life and peace. I gave its statutes to him to fill him with awe, and he indeed revered me and stood in awe before me.
Malachi 3:7
3:7 From the days of your ancestors you have ignored 2 my commandments 3 and have not kept them! Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord who rules over all. “But you say, ‘How should we return?’
Malachi 3:17
3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. 4 I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
1 sn The word table, here a synonym for “altar,” has overtones of covenant imagery in which a feast shared by the covenant partners was an important element (see Exod 24:11). It also draws attention to the analogy of sitting down at a common meal with the governor (v. 8).
2 tn Heb “turned aside from.”
3 tn Or “statutes” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “decrees”; NLT “laws.”
4 sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.