¶ And now (O ye priests) this commandment toucheth you:
If ye will not hear it, nor regard it, to give the glory unto my name, sayeth the LORD of Hosts, I will send a curse upon you, and will curse your blessings: yea curse them will I if ye do not take heed.
Behold, I shall corrupt your seed, and cast dung in your faces: even the dung of your solempne feasts and it shall cleave fast upon you.
And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you: that my covenant which I made with Levi, might stond, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.
I made a covenant of life and peace with him: this I gave him, that he might stond in awe of me: and so he did fear me, and had my name in reverence.
The law of truth was in his mouth, and there was no wickedness found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many one away from their sins.
For the priest's lips should be sure knowledge, that men may seek the law at his mouth, for he is a messenger of the LORD of Hosts.
But as for you, ye are gone clean out of the way, and have caused the multitude to be offended at the law: ye have broken the covenant of Levi, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.
Therefore will I also make you to be despised, and to be of no reputation among all the people: because ye have not kept my ways, but been partial in the law.
¶ Have we not all one father? Hath not one God made us? why doth every one of us then despise his own brother, and so break the covenant of our fathers?
Now hath Iudah offended: yea the abomination is done in Israel and in Ierusalem, for Iudah hath defiled the Sanctuary of the LORD, which he loved, and hath kept the daughter of a strange God.
But the LORD shall destroy the man that doth this, yea both the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacle of Iacob, with him that offereth up meatoffering unto the LORD of Hosts.
Now have ye brought it to this point again, that the altar of the LORD is covered with tears weeping, and mourning: so that I will no more regard the meatoffering, neither will I receive or accept anything at your hands.
And yet ye say: wherefore? Even because that where as the LORD made a covenant betwixt thee and the wife of thy youth, thou hast despised her: Yet is she thine own companion and married wife.
So did not the one, and yet had he an excellent spirit. What did then the one? He sought the seed promised of God. Therefore look well to your spirit, and let no man despise the wife of his youth.
If thou hatest her, put her away, sayeth the LORD God of Israel and give her a clothing for the scorn, sayeth the LORD of Hosts. Look well then to your spirit, and despise her not.
Ye grieve the LORD with your words, and yet ye say: wherewithall have we grieved him? In this, that ye say: All that do evil are good in the sight of God, and such please him. Or else where is the God that punisheth?
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Praise the Everlasting Lord for His Faithful Word.