Sefer Malakhi ha'Nabi

A pronouncement from Miltha Mar-Yah to Yisrael through Malakhi ha'Nabi.

"I have loved you," says Mar-Yah. Yet you say, "How have you loved us?" "Was not Esau the brother of Jacob?" says Mar-Yah, "Yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness."

Whereas Edom says, "We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places;" thus says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "They shall build, but I will throw down; and men will call them 'The Wicked Land,' even the people against whom Mar-Yah shows wrath forever."

Your eyes will see, and you will say, "Mar-Yah is great -- even beyond the border of Yisrael!"

"A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, 'How have we despised your name?'

You offer polluted bread on my altar. You say, 'How have we polluted you?' In that you say, 'The table of Mar-Yah, contemptible.'

When you offer the blind for sacrifice, is not that evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is not that evil? Present it now to your governor! Will he be pleased with you? Or will he accept your person?" says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"Now, please entreat the favour of Alaha, that he may be gracious to us. With this, will he accept any of you?" says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the nations," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"But you profane it, in that you say, 'The table of Mar-Yah is polluted, and its fruit, even its food, is contemptible.' You say also, 'Behold, what a weariness it is!' and you have sniffed at it," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot; "and you have brought that which was taken by violence, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering. Should I accept this at your hand?" says Mar-Yah.

"But the deceiver is cursed, who has in his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices to Mar-Yah a blemished thing; for I am a great King," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "and my name is awesome among the nations."

"Now, you priests, this commandment is for you: If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart.

Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.

You will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant may be with Levi," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name.

The truth of Torah was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in shalom and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity.

For the lips of the priest should keep knowledge, and they should seek Torah at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

But you have turned aside out of the way. You have caused many to stumble concerning Torah. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.

Do we not all have one father? Has not one Alaha created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Judah has dealt treacherously, and an infraction is committed in Yisrael and in Yerushalayim; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Mar-Yah which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign deity.

Mar-Yah will cut off, to the man who does this, him who wakes and him who answers, out of the tents of Jacob, and him who offers an offering to Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

This again you do: you cover the altar of Mar-Yah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he does not regard that offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand.

Yet you say, 'Why?' Because Mar-Yah has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.

Did he not make you one, so that all the life-breath is His? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your life-breath [spirit], and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

For I hate divorce," says Mar-Yah, the Alaha of Yisrael, "and him who covers his garment with violence!" says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot. "Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.

You have wearied Mar-Yah with your words. Yet you say, 'How have we wearied him?' In that you say, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Mar-Yah, and he delights in them;' or 'Where is the Alaha of justice?'

"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and Yeshua the Deliverer, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you desire, behold, they are coming!" says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"But who can endure the day of our coming? And who will stand when they appear? For they are like the fire of a refiner, and like the soap of the wash-maiden; and they will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and they will purify the B'nai Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and the B'nai Levi shall offer to Mar-Yah offerings in righteousness.

Then the offering of Judah and Yerushalayim will be pleasant to Mar-Yah, as in ancient times, and as in ancient eras.

I will come near to you to bring judgement; and I will be a swift witness against the practitioners of wicked omens, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and do not fear me," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"For I, Mar-Yah, do not change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot. "But you say, 'How shall we return?'

Will a man rob Alaha? Yet you rob me! But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In tithes and offerings.

You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation.

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove to me now in this," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough for.

I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"All the gentiles of the land shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"Your words have been stout against me," says Mar-Yah. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against you?'

You have said, 'It is vain to serve Alaha;' and 'What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before Mar-Yah Tzava'ot?

Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they attempt to bring tests against Alaha, and escape.'

Then those who feared Mar-Yah spoke one with another; and Mar-Yah listened, and heard, and a Book of Memorials was written before him, for those who feared Mar-Yah, and who honoured his name.

They shall be my possession," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "my own possession in the day that I make, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.

Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves Alaha and him who does not serve him.

"For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot, "that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But to you who fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.

You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make," says Mar-Yah Tzava'ot.

"Remember the Torah of Moshah my servant, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all Yisrael, even statutes and ordinances [traditions and revelations and all their details].

Behold, I will send you Eliyahu ha'nabi before the great and terrible day of Mar-Yah comes.

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

Behold, I will send you Eliyahu ha'nabi before the great and terrible day of Mar-Yah comes.