Malachi 3:13–4:2

¹³“Your words have been harsh^r against me,” says Yahweh. “But you say, ‘How have we spoken together against you?’ ¹⁴You have said, ‘It is useless^s to serve God! What is the gain if we keep^t his requirements, and if we walk as mourners before^u Yahweh of hosts? ¹⁵And now we are calling the arrogant blessed! Not only do those who do wickedness prosper; they also test God and they escape!’ ”

A Book of Remembrance is Written

¹⁶Then those who revered^v Yahweh spoke with one another.^w And Yahweh listened attentively^x and heard, and a scroll of remembrance was written before him^y of those who revere^z Yahweh and ponder his name. 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.

4^a “For look! The day is about to come, burning like an oven, and all the arrogant and every evildoer^b will be stubble. The coming day will consume^c them,” says Yahweh of hosts. “It will not leave behind for them root or branch. ²But for you who revere^d my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like fattened calves.^e