Discovery BoxMalachi 1:7 
Context1:7 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 1:9
Context1:9 But now plead for God’s favor 2 that he might be gracious to us. 3 “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.
Malachi 2:7-8
Context2:7 For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge of sacred things, and people should seek instruction from him 4 because he is the messenger of the Lord who rules over all. 2:8 You, however, have turned from the way. You have caused many to violate the law; 5 you have corrupted the covenant with Levi,” 6 says the Lord who rules over all.
Malachi 2:11
Context2:11 Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. 7 For Judah has profaned 8 the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! 9
Malachi 2:13-14
Context2:13 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears 10 as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you. 2:14 Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, 11 to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. 12
Malachi 3:3
Context3:3 He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.
Malachi 3:7
Context3:7 From the days of your ancestors you have ignored 13 my commandments 14 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 3:14
Context3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped 15 by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? 16
Malachi 3:17
Context3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. 17 I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
Malachi 4:3
Context4:3 You will trample on the wicked, for they will be like ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord who rules over all.
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 “seek the face of God.”
3 tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunction indicates purpose (cf. NASB, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “from his mouth” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV).
5 tn The definite article embedded within בַּתּוֹרָה (battorah) may suggest that the Torah is in mind and not just “ordinary” priestly instruction, though it might refer to the instruction previously mentioned (v. 7).
6 tn Or “the Levitical covenant.”
7 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
8 tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”
9 tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the
10 sn You cover the altar of the
11 tn Heb “the
12 sn Though there is no explicit reference to marriage vows in the OT (but see Job 7:13; Prov 2:17; Ezek 16:8), the term law (Heb “covenant”) here asserts that such vows or agreements must have existed. References to divorce documents (e.g., Deut 24:1-3; Jer 3:8) also presuppose the existence of marriage documents.
13 tn Heb “turned aside from.”
14 tn Or “statutes” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “decrees”; NLT “laws.”
15 tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”
16 sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the
17 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
