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 2:9
2:9 “Therefore, I have caused you to be ignored and belittled before all people to the extent to which you are not following after me and are showing partiality in your 1 instruction.”
Malachi 3:14
3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped 2 by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? 3
Malachi 3:16
3:16 Then those who respected 4 the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord took notice. 5 A scroll 6 was prepared before him in which were recorded the names of those who respected the Lord and honored his name.
1 tn Heb “in the instruction” (so NASB). The Hebrew article is used here as a possessive pronoun (cf. NRSV, NLT).
2 tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”
3 sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the Lord. The reason, of course, is that it was blatantly hypocritical.
4 tn Or “fear” (so NAB); NRSV “revered”; NCV “honored.”
5 tn Heb “heard and listened”; NAB “listened attentively.”
6 sn The scroll mentioned here is a “memory book” (סֵפֶר זִכָּרוֹן, sefer zikkaron) in which the Lord keeps an ongoing record of the names of all the redeemed (see Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Rev 20:12-15).