Malachi 2

Malachi 2:3

Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

Behold, I will punish you with dearth: your seed shall corrupt, and your fields shall yield you no increase; and I will scornfully cast the dung of your sacrifices, in your solemn feasts, upon your faces, and so cover you over with it, that ye shall be carried away, as a heap of compost: so basely will I cause you to be reputed of my people.

Malachi 2:4

And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

And ye shall know, that I have decreed and commanded this contempt to be poured upon you, that ye might repent of your sins, wherewith ye have provoked me, that so, I might continue that covenant, which I made with the tribe of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Malachi 2:5

My covenant was with him of life and peace.

I covenanted with my priesthood of that tribe, to give them preservation and welfare; yea, the life of grace, and true spiritual peace.

Malachi 2:10

Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Why do ye tax us for our unlawful marriages with infidels? Was not Adam one common father to us all? Hath not one God created us all? Why do ye therefore charge us, with treacherous dealing with our brethren, and profaning the covenant of our forefathers, in that we do promiscuously match with our heathen neighbours?

Malachi 2:11

Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.

Yes, O ye Jews, think not to evade thus: Judah hath dealt treacherously with God, and with those lawful wives whom they had formerly taken; and an abomination is committed in Israel, and in Jerusalem itself: for Judah hath profaned the holy institution of marriage, which the Lord hath both made and highly respected; and hath taken, as an addition of a second marriage, unto his bed, the daughters of Pagans and Infidels.

Malachi 2:12

The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.

The Lord will not suffer these wicked conjunctions to prosper: he will cut off the man that doth this, together with his posterity, and his abettors, out of the congregation of Israel; and though he should think to pacify God with offerings, yet God will not accept them, or spare him.

Malachi 2:13

And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

And this ye have added unto your other sins; ye have dealt so cruelly and unjustly with your wives, as that ye have caused them to wash the altars of God, with the tears of their weeping and complaints: so as, that God, who hateth all iniquity, regardeth not the offerings you present unto him, any more, &c.

Malachi 2:14

Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against

whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Yet ye stand stiffly upon the justification of your innocence; and say, What have we done, or wherein have we deserved this disrespect to our sacrifices? Know then, that it is for your treacherous and unjust dealing with the wife of your youth, with whom you were lawfully married; of which solemn contract, the Lord himself, the institutor of marriage, hath been witness: even those your lawful wives have ye abused; yet they are ordained of God for the comfortable companions of your life, and by a firm and indissoluble covenant conjoined unto you.

Malachi 2:15

And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

Yourselves, if ye shall but look back to the first original act of God, shall necessarily be convinced; for did not God make one woman only for one man? yet He had power, who was, and is the God of the Spirits of All Flesh, to have made more: this had been as easy for him; wherefore did he therefore conjoin one woman only to that one man, and why doth he still continue his ordinance of the same single copulation; but, that herein he took care that the children, the issue of such wedlock, should be holily and lawfully begotten? Take heed to yourselves therefore, and keep yourselves within the compass of God’s ordinance, and suffer not your unbridled spirits to break forth into these inordinate desires and wicked concupiscences: let no man offer wrong to the wife of his youth, in taking in a stranger unto his bed.

Malachi 2:16

For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one corereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

For the Lord God of Israel, howsoever ye may unjustly pretend his allowance of this common dismissal of your wives upon every slight occasion, professeth to hate these your causeless repudiations of them; and whosoever doth this, what colour soever he set upon it, yet doth but cloak a violence and wrong, which God will revenge, &c.

Malachi 2:17

Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

Moreover, besides all these actual wickednesses, ye have extremely urged the patience of the Lord, with the words of your blasphemies; yet ye are ready to face out this sin also, and say, Wherein have we thus offended in our speeches?