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 3:7
Context3:7 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 3:14
Context3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped 4 by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? 5
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 tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”
5 sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the
