Malachi 3:13–4:2

¹³“Your words have been stout against me, says the Lord. Yet you say, ‘How have we spoken against thee?’ ¹⁴You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? ¹⁵Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape.’ ”

¹⁶Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another; the Lord heeded and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and thought on his name. ¹⁷“They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. ¹⁸Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

Chapter 4

¹“For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ²But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall.