Maleakhi 1:8

1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, ¹  is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them ²  to your governor! Will he be pleased with you ³  or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 1:11

1:11 For from the east to the west my name will be great among the nations. Incense and pure offerings will be offered in my name everywhere, for my name will be great among the nations,” ⁴  says the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 2:14

2:14 Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, ⁵  to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. ⁶ 

Maleakhi 3:3

3:3 He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

Maleakhi 3:7

3:7 From the days of your ancestors you have ignored ⁷  my commandments ⁸  and have not kept them! Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord who rules over all. “But you say, ‘How should we return?’

Maleakhi 3:14

3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ⁹  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ¹⁰ 

[1:8]  ¹ sn Offerings of animals that were lame or sick were strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law (see Deut 15:21).

[1:8]  ² tn Heb “it” (so NAB, NASB). Contemporary English more naturally uses a plural pronoun to agree with “the lame and sick” in the previous question (cf. NIV, NCV).

[1:8]  ³ tc The LXX and Vulgate read “with it” (which in Hebrew would be הֲיִרְצֵהוּ, hayirtsehu, a reading followed by NAB) rather than “with you” of the MT (הֲיִרְצְךָ, hayirtsÿkha). The MT (followed here by most English versions) is to be preferred because of the parallel with the following phrase פָנֶיךָ (fanekha, “receive you,” which the present translation renders as “show you favor”).

[1:11]  ⁴ sn My name will be great among the nations. In what is clearly a strongly ironic shift of thought, the Lord contrasts the unbelief and virtual paganism of the postexilic community with the conversion and obedience of the nations that will one day worship the God of Israel.

[2:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord is a witness between you and [between] the wife of your youth.”

[2:14]  ⁶ sn Though there is no explicit reference to marriage vows in the OT (but see Job 7:13; Prov 2:17; Ezek 16:8), the term law (Heb “covenant”) here asserts that such vows or agreements must have existed. References to divorce documents (e.g., Deut 24:1-3; Jer 3:8) also presuppose the existence of marriage documents.

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “turned aside from.”

[3:7]  ⁸ tn Or “statutes” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “decrees”; NLT “laws.”

[3:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”

[3:14]  ¹⁰ sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the Lord. The reason, of course, is that it was blatantly hypocritical.