The Prophet Malachi

⭑ Catholic Public Domain Version 2009 ⭑

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- Chapter 1 -

(Genesis 25:19–28; Romans 9:6–29)

The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachi.

I have loved you, says the Lord, and you have said, “In what way have you loved us?” Was not Esau brother to Jacob, says the Lord? And have I not loved Jacob,(a)

(b)

but held hatred for Esau? And I have set his mountains in solitude, and his inheritance with the serpents of the desert.

But if Idumea will say, “We have been destroyed, but when we return, we will build up what has been destroyed,” thus says the Lord of hosts: They will build up, and I will destroy. And they will be called “The limits of impiety,” and, “The people with whom the Lord has been angry, even to eternity.”

And your eyes will see. And you will say, “May the Lord be magnified beyond the limits of Israel.”

The Polluted Offerings

The son honors the father, and the servant his master. If, therefore, I am Father, where is my honor? And if I am Master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. And you have said, “In what way, have we despised your name?”

You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say, “In what way, have we polluted you?” In that you say, “The table of the Lord has been despised.”

If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is this not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is this not evil? Offer it to your leader, if he will be pleased with it, or if he will accept your face, says the Lord of hosts.(c)

And now, beseech the face of God, so that he may have mercy on you (for by your hand has this been done) if, in any way, he might accept your faces, says the Lord of hosts.(d)

Who is there among you that would close the doors and enflame my altar without pay? I have no favor in you, says the Lord of hosts. And I will not accept a gift from your hand.

For, from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place, a clean oblation is being sacrificed and offered to my name. For my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord of hosts.(e)

And you have polluted it, in that you say, “The table of the Lord has been contaminated; and that which is placed upon it is contemptible, compared with the fire that devours it.”

And you have said, “Behold our labor,” and you have exhaled it away, says the Lord of hosts. And you brought in by plunder the lame, and the sick, and brought it in as a gift. How can I receive this from your hand, says the Lord?(f)

Cursed is the deceitful, who holds in his flock a male, and, when making a vow, offers in sacrifice that which is feeble to the Lord. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the Gentiles.

Footnotes

(a)1:2 The word ‘Nonne’ gives both questions the connotation of ‘isn’t it true that....’ Although the word ‘Nonne’ is not repeated in Latin, the meaning applies to both and so it is, in effect, repeated in the translation.(Conte)

(b)1:2 I have loved Jacob, etc:I have preferred his posterity, to make them my chosen people, and to lead them with my blessings, without any merit on their part, and though they have been always ungrateful; whilst I have rejected Esau, and executed severe judgments upon his posterity. Not that God punished Esau, or his posterity, beyond their desert: but that by his free election and grace he loved Jacob, and favoured his posterity above their deserts. See the annotations upon Rom. 9.(Challoner)

(c)1:8 The blind, lame, and sick who are offered for sacrifice, in the Old Testament context, is the animals offered as sacrifice. But in the New Testament context, the blind, lame, and sick who are offered as a sacrifice to God are those who enter the priesthood or religious life, but who are unfit for such service due to spiritual blindness, lameness, or sickness.(Conte)

(d)1:9 The Latin uses a different word in this verse to refer to the face of God than to refer to the face of man.(Conte)

(e)1:11 A clean oblation:Viz., the precious body and blood of Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice.(Challoner)

(f)1:13 Behold of our labour, etc:You pretended labour and weariness, when you brought your offering; and so made it of no value, by offering it with an evil mind. Moreover, what you offered was both defective in itself, and gotten by rapine and extortion.(Challoner)