The Lord said, “Esau and Jacob were brothers. I loved Jacob, ³but I hated Esau. I destroyed his mountain country and left his land to the wild dogs of the desert.”

⁴The people of Edom might say, “We were destroyed, but we will go back and rebuild the ruins.”

But the Lord All-Powerful says, “If they rebuild them, I will destroy them. People will say, ‘Edom is a wicked country. The Lord is always angry with the Edomites.’ ⁵You will see these things with your own eyes. And you will say, ‘The Lord is great, even outside the borders of Israel!’ ”

The Priests Don’t Respect God

⁶The Lord All-Powerful says, “A son honors his father, and a servant honors his master.” I am a father, so why don’t you honor me? I am a master, so why don’t you respect me? You priests do not respect me.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown you disrespect?’

⁷“You have shown it by bringing unclean food to my altar.

“But you ask, ‘What makes it unclean?’

“It is unclean because you don’t respect the altar of the Lord. ⁸When you bring blind animals as sacrifices, that is wrong. When you bring crippled and sick animals, that is wrong. Try giving them to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? He wouldn’t accept you,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

⁹“Now ask God to be kind to you, but he won’t accept you with such offerings,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

¹⁰“I wish one of you would close the Temple doors so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you and will not accept your gifts,” says the Lord All-Powerful. ¹¹“From the east to the west I will be honored among the nations. Everywhere they will bring incense and clean offerings to me, because I will be honored among the nations,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

¹²“But you don’t honor me. You say about the Lord’s altar, ‘It is unclean, and the food has no worth.’ ¹³You say, ‘We are tired of doing this,’ and you sniff at it in disgust,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

“And you bring hurt, crippled, and sick animals as gifts. You bring them as gifts, but I won’t accept them from you,” says the Lord. ¹⁴“The person who cheats will be cursed. He has a male animal in his flock and promises to offer it, but then he offers to the Lord an animal that has something wrong with it. I am a great king,” says the Lord All-Powerful, “and I am feared by all the nations.

Rules for Priests

2“Priests, this command is for you. ²Listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Honor my name,” says the Lord All-Powerful. “If you don’t, I will send a curse on you and on your blessings. I have already cursed them, because you don’t pay attention to what I say.

³“I will punish your descendants. I will smear your faces with the animal insides left from your feasts, and you will be thrown away with it. ⁴Then you will know that I am giving you this command so my agreement with Levi will continue,” says the Lord All-Powerful. ⁵“My agreement for priests was with the tribe of Levi. I promised them life and peace so they would honor me. And they did honor me and fear me. ⁶They taught the true teachings and spoke no lies. With peace and honesty they did what I said they should do, and they kept many people from sinning.

⁷“A priest should teach what he knows, and people should learn the teachings from him, because he is the messenger of the Lord All-Powerful. ⁸But you priests have stopped obeying me. With your teachings you have caused many people to do wrong. You have broken the agreement with the tribe of Levi!” says the Lord All-Powerful. ⁹“You have not been careful to do what I say, but instead you take sides in court cases. So I have caused you to be hated and disgraced in front of everybody.”

Judah Was Not Loyal to God

¹⁰We all have the same father; the same God made us. So why do people break their promises to each other and show no respect for the agreement our ancestors made with God? ¹¹The people of Judah have broken their promises. They have done something God hates in Israel and Jerusalem: The people of Judah did not respect the Temple that the Lord loves, and the men of Judah married women who worship foreign gods. ¹²Whoever does this might bring offerings to the Lord All-Powerful, but the Lord will still cut that person off from the community of Israel.

¹³This is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with your tears. You cry and moan, because he does not accept your offerings and is not pleased with what you bring. ¹⁴You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord sees how you treated the wife you married when you were young. You broke your promise to her, even though she was your partner and you had an agreement with her. ¹⁵God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for his purpose—so they would have children who are true to God.

So be careful, and do not break your promise to the wife you married when you were young.

¹⁶The Lord God of Israel says, “I hate divorce. And I hate people who do cruel things as easily as they put on clothes,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

So be careful. And do not break your trust.

The Special Day of Judging

¹⁷You have tired the Lord with your words.

You ask, “How have we tired him?”

You did it by saying, “The Lord thinks anyone who does evil is good, and he is pleased with them.” Or you asked, “Where is the God who is fair?”

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