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1“Look! I am going to send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you are seeking will come suddenly to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you are taking pleasure—look!—he is about to come,” says Yahweh of hosts.[#Or “my angel”; #Or “clear”; #Literally “before my face”]
2And who can endure the day of his coming? And who is the one who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, like launderers’ alkali.[#Literally “at his appearing”; #Or “lye,” or “soap”]
3He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the children of Levi, and he will refine them like gold and like silver, and they will present to Yahweh offerings in righteousness.[#Hebrew “offering”]
4And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to Yahweh, like in the days of old and like in former years.
5“Then I will approach you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely, and against the oppressors of the hired worker with his wages, the widow and the orphan, and the abusers of the alien, and yet do not fear me,” says Yahweh of hosts.[#Literally “as far as the falseness”; #Literally “those pushing aside”; #Or “sojourner”]
6“For I, Yahweh, have not changed, and you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.[#Or “I do not change”; #Or “are not destroyed”]
7From the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my rules, and have not kept them! Return to me and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of hosts, “but you say, ‘How shall we return?’[#Or “fathers”; #Or “observed”]
8Will a human dare to rob God? Yet you are robbing me! And you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In the tithes and the contributions!
9You are being cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you!
10Bring the whole tithe to the storehouse, so that there will be food in my house, and test me please in this,” says Yahweh of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour forth for you an overflowing blessing.[#Hebrew “the house of the treasure”; #Literally, “a blessing up to not enough”]
11I will rebuke the devourer for you; it will not destroy the fruit of your soil; your vine in the field will not be unfruitful,” says Yahweh of hosts.[#NRSV, JPS interpret this word as “locust”]
12“And all the nations will call you blessed, because you will be a land in which one takes joy,” says Yahweh of hosts.[#Literally “a land of desire”]
13“Your words have been harsh against me,” says Yahweh. “But you say, ‘How have we spoken together against you?’[#Hebrew “strong”]
14You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God! What is the gain if we keep his requirements, and if we walk as mourners before Yahweh of hosts?[#Or “vain”; #Or “observe”; #Literally “from the face of”]
15And now we are calling the arrogant blessed! Not only do those who do wickedness prosper; they also test God and they escape!’ ”
16Then those who revered Yahweh spoke with one another. And Yahweh listened attentively and heard, and a scroll of remembrance was written before him of those who revere Yahweh and ponder his name.[#Or “fear”; #Literally “each with his friend/companion”; #Or “gave heed”; #Literally “to the face of him”; #Or “fear”]
17“They will be mine,” says Yahweh of hosts, “on the day that I am acting, my treasured possession. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
18You will return and see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve him.