1: Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he will come, saith the LORD of hosts. 2: But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he [is] like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. 3: And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness. 4: Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. 5: And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. 6: For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. 7: Even from the days of your fathers ye have gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept [them]. Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, In what shall we return? 8: Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, In what have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. 9: Ye [are] cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, [even] this whole nation. 10: Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now with this, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that [there shall] not [be room] enough [to receive it]. 11: And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. 12: And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts. 13: Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee? 14: Ye have said, It [is] vain to serve God: and what profit [is it] that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? 15: And now we call the proud happy; yes, they that work wickedness are set up; even [they that] tempt God are delivered. 16: Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard [it], and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17: And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 18: Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
