Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; {Or, even}and the {Or, angel}messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts.
But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Jehovah, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years.
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, saith Jehovah of hosts.
For I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return?
Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and {Hebrew: heave-offering.}offerings.
Ye are cursed with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before the time in the field, saith Jehovah of hosts.
And all nations shall call you happy; for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith Jehovah of hosts.
Your words have been stout against me, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee?
Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his charge, and that we have walked {Or, in mourning apparel}mournfully before Jehovah of hosts?
and now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are built up; yea, they tempt God, and escape.
Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name.
And they shall be mine, saith Jehovah of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I {Or, do this}make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. {[Chapter 3:19 in Hebrew]}
Querverweise zu Maleachi 3,15 Mal 3,15
For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? In that ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in them; or where is the God of justice?
If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, {Or, Thou shall put away…And shall lay up}If thou put away unrighteousness far from thy tents.
because all those men that have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;
Nevertheless Haman refrained himself, and went home; and he sent and fetched his friends and Zeresh his wife.
The tents of robbers prosper,And they that provoke God are secure; {Or, That bring their god to their hand}Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that despised me see it:
For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire,And {Or, blesseth the covetous, but contemneth &c.}the covetous renounceth, yea, {Or, revileth}contemneth Jehovah.
Wherefore do the wicked live,Become old, yea, wax mighty in power?
Their seed is established with them in their sight,And their offspring before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear,Neither is the rod of God upon them.
Their bull gendereth, and faileth not;Their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
They send forth their little ones like a flock,And their children dance.
They {Hebrew: lift up the voice.}sing to the timbrel and harp,And rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity,And in a moment they go down to Sheol.
And they say unto God, Depart from us;For we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.
Though while he lived he blessed his soul(And men praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself),
That the evil man is {Or, spared in &c.}reserved to the day of calamity?That they are {Or, led away in &c.}led forth to the day of wrath?
And they tempted God in their heartBy asking food {Or, for themselves}according to their desire.
Behold, these are the wicked;And, being alway at ease, they increase in riches.
The wicked desireth {Or, the prey}the net of evil men;But the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit.
And they turned again and tempted God,And {Or, limited}provoked the Holy One of Israel.
The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?
For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it be love or hatred, man knoweth it not; all is before them.
Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God,And kept not his testimonies;
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.
All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
When your fathers tempted me,Proved me, and saw my work.
But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:
and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts', and his dwelling was with the wild asses; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; until he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up over it whomsoever he will.
And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this,
but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine from them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.
Then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed.
And this is the writing that was inscribed: {That is, Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divisions.}MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end;
TEKEL; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
{That is, Divided.}PERES; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
Righteous art thou, O Jehovah, when I contend with thee; yet would I {Hebrew: speak of judgements.}reason the cause with thee: wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they at ease that deal very treacherously?
But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,And tempted God in the desert.
And upon a set day Herod arrayed himself in royal apparel, and sat on the {Or, judgement-seat See Matthew 27:19.}throne, and made an oration unto them.
Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root; they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their {Hebrew: reins.}heart.
and saith unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, {Psalm 41:11, 12}He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:and,On their hands they shall bear thee up,Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone.
{Or, Likewise...elder; yea, all of you one to another. Gird yourselves with humility}Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he;
and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag: therefore he rejoiceth and is glad.
Therefore he sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat, and his food {Hebrew: fat.}plenteous.
Shall he therefore empty his net, and spare not to slay the nations continually?
Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, {Deuteronomy 6:16}Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.
But Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to try the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them that have buried thy husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee out.
Neither let us make trial of the {Some ancient authorities read Christ.}Lord, as some of them made trial, and perished by the serpents.
{Or, Wherewith}Where your fathers tried me by proving me,And saw my works forty years.