Contemptible Priests
Malachi 2, verse 1. “And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. Malachi 2, verse 2. If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing; indeed I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing, and you will have it no more because you do not take this to heart. Malachi 2, verse 3. Behold, I am turning my back on you, and I will smear dung on your faces, the dung of your feasts, and I will carry you away at the same time. Malachi 2, verse 4. Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant is with the sons of Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 2, verse 5. “My covenant of life and peace was with him, and I gave this to him that he might reverently fear Me, that he might be established before My name. Malachi 2, verse 6. The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned many away from lawlessness. Malachi 2, verse 7. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty. Malachi 2, verse 8. “But you have departed from the way; you weakened many in the law and corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 2, verse 9. “Therefore I also made you contemptible and disregarded before all nations, because you have not guarded My ways but have shown partiality in the law.” Malachi 2, verse 10. Did not one God create you? Do you not all have one father? Why, then, does each of you forsake his brother to profane the covenant of your fathers? Malachi 2, verse 11. Judah was forsaken, and an abomination has occurred in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah profaned the holy things of the Lord, which He loved, and sought out foreign gods. Malachi 2, verse 12. The Lord will destroy the man who does these things until he is humiliated from the tents of Jacob and from among those who offer sacrifice to the Lord Almighty.
The Tragedy of Divorce
Malachi 2, verse 13. And you do these things which I hate. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and moaning because of troubles, yet still thinking it is worthy to look upon your sacrifice or take it as acceptable from your hands. Malachi 2, verse 14. And you say, “Why?” Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have forsaken; yet she is your companion and the wife of your covenant. Malachi 2, verse 15. But did He not make another, having a remnant of His Spirit? Yet you ask, “What else does God seek but offspring?” But take heed to your spirit, and do not forsake the wife of your youth. Malachi 2, verse 16. “But if you hate her and send her away,” says the Lord God of Israel, “ungodliness will obscure your thinking,” says the Lord Almighty. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not forsake her.” Malachi 2, verse 17. You weary the Lord with your words, yet you say, “In what way have we wearied Him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”