Malachi 3:13–4:6

The People Complain Harshly

13 “Your zwords have been 3harsh against Me,”

Says the Lord,

Yet you say,

‘What have we spoken against You?’

14 aYou have said,

‘It is useless to serve God;

What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance,

And that we have walked as mourners

Before the Lord of hosts?

15 So now bwe call the proud blessed,

For those who do wickedness are 4raised up;

They even ctempt God and go free.’ ”

A Book of Remembrance

16 Then those dwho feared the Lord espoke to one another,

And the Lord listened and heard them;

So fa book of remembrance was written before Him

For those who fear the Lord

And who 5meditate on His name.

17 “They gshall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,

“On the day that I make them My hjewels. 6

And iI will spare them

As a man spares his own son who serves him.”

18 jThen you shall again discern

Between the righteous and the wicked,

Between one who serves God

And one who does not serve Him.

The Great Day of God

4 “For behold, athe day is coming,

Burning like an oven,

And all bthe proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be cstubble.

And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”

Says the Lord of hosts,

“That will dleave them neither root nor branch.

2 But to you who efear My name

The fSun of Righteousness shall arise

With healing in His wings;

And you shall go out

And grow fat like stall-fed calves.

3 gYou shall trample the wicked,

For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet

On the day that I do this,”

Says the Lord of hosts.

4 “Remember the hLaw of Moses, My servant,

Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,

With ithe statutes and judgments.

5 Behold, I will send you jElijah the prophet

kBefore the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

6 And he will turn

The hearts of the fathers to the children,

And the hearts of the children to their fathers,

Lest I come and lstrike the earth with ma curse.”