Malachi 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

A heavy message. The word of Yahweh to Israel, carried by Malachi.

I have loved you, says Yahweh. And you ask, "How have you loved us?" Wasn't Esau Jacob's brother? says Yahweh. And I chose Jacob,

and Esau I passed over. I turned his hill country into a waste and left his land to the jackals of the desert.

Edom may say, "We've been knocked flat, but we'll go back and rebuild the ruins." Here is what Yahweh who commands armies says: they can build, and I will pull down. People will call them the country of wrongdoing, the people Yahweh is angry with for good.

You will see it with your own eyes, and you will say, "Yahweh is great far past the border of Israel."

A son honors his father, and a servant honors his master. So if I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect? That is what Yahweh who commands armies says to you, priests, the ones who treat my name as worth nothing. And you ask, "How have we treated your name as worth nothing?"

You bring polluted food to my altar. And you ask, "How have we polluted you?" By saying the table of Yahweh doesn't matter.

When you bring a blind animal to sacrifice, is nothing wrong with that? When you bring the lame and the sick, is nothing wrong with that? Try handing it to your governor. Would he be pleased with you? Would he take your side? says Yahweh who commands armies.

Now go on, ask God to be good to us. With gifts like these coming from your hands, will he take any of you? says Yahweh who commands armies.

I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so you'd stop lighting fires on my altar for nothing. I take no pleasure in you, says Yahweh who commands armies, and I will not take an offering from your hands.

From where the sun comes up to where it goes down, my name is great among the nations. In every place they burn incense to my name and bring a clean offering, because my name is great among the nations, says Yahweh who commands armies.

But you drag my name through the mud when you say the Lord's table is polluted and the food on it is worthless.

You say, "What a nuisance," and you sniff at it, says Yahweh who commands armies. You bring in animals that were taken by force, and the lame ones, and the sick ones, and that is the offering you hand me. Am I supposed to take it from you? says Yahweh.

A curse on the cheat who has a sound male in his flock, promises it, then sacrifices a damaged animal to the Lord. I am a great king, says Yahweh who commands armies, and my name is feared among the nations.