Malachi 1

Chapter 1

God has loved Jacob but not Esau

1This is the message that the Lord told to Malachi. #1:1 When we write Lord like this, it is a special name for God. Sometimes people write it as ‘Yahweh’, or as ‘Jehovah’. It is his own name that he told Moses. See Exodus 3:14. It means ‘I am who I am’. This shows that God has always been there and he always will be there. Malachi knew that he must tell this message to the Israelites.

2The Lord says, ‘I have loved you.’

But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ #1:2 God says that he loves the Israelites because they are his special people.

The Lord says, ‘I chose to love Jacob and his descendants. Esau was Jacob's brother. 3But I have not loved Esau and his descendants. #1:3 Esau and Jacob were brothers who were twins. Esau was born first. So he should have received God's special blessing. But Esau sold his blessing to Jacob.

Instead, I have caused trouble for Esau. I caused Esau's mountains to become a wilderness. Nobody uses that land any longer. Now there are only jackals in the land that belongs to Esau.’

4Esau's descendants in Edom may say, ‘They have destroyed our towns, but we will build our houses again.’

But the Lord Almighty says, ‘They may build again, but I will knock everything down. People will call Edom, “The Evil Land”. #1:4 The people of Edom were Esau's descendants. They lived in the mountains. Then powerful enemies fought them. The Edomites had to leave their homes. Nobody lived there any longer. They will call them, “The Nation that the Lord is angry with for ever”. 5You will see with your own eyes what I will do to them. Then you will say, “The Lord has great power, even beyond Israel's borders.” ’

The priests do not respect God

6The Lord Almighty says this to the priests:

‘A son respects his father. A servant respects his master. If I am really your father and your master, why do you not respect me? You are my priests, but you insult my name. #1:6 When an Israelite spoke about God's name, he was speaking about God himself. So to insult the name of God was to show no respect for God himself.

But then you ask, “What have we done to insult your name?”

7You insult my name when you offer unclean sacrifices to me on my altar.

But you ask, “How have we offered unclean sacrifices to you?”

You have shown that you do not respect the Lord's altar as important. #1:7 The Israelites gave gifts as sacrifices to God. God told them in his Law how they should do that. They brought their gifts to the priests, who then made the sacrifices. Malachi says that the people and the priests were trying to cheat God. The gifts that they offered were not good and pure in the way that God said they should be. 8You offer blind animals as a sacrifice to me. You know that is wrong. You offer to me animals that cannot walk or animals that are ill. That is also a wrong thing to do. You would not give gifts like that to your city's ruler. If you did, he would surely not accept them. He would not be happy with your gifts.’