Threatenings against the Priests being seducers of the people.
1.And now, ô ye aPriests, this commandment is for you.
2.If ye will not hear it, nor consider it in your heart to give glory bunto my Name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and will curse your cblessings: yea, I have cursed them already because ye do not consider it in your heart.
3.Behold, I will corrupt dyour seed, and cast dongue upon your faces, even the edongue of your solemn feasts, and you shalbe like unto it.
4.And ye shall know, that I have fsent this commandment unto you, that my covenant, which I made with Leví, might stand, saith the Lord of hosts.
5.My gcovenant was with him of life and peace, and I hgave him fear, and he feared me, and was afraid before imy Name.
6.The law of ktruth was in his mouth, and there was no iniquity found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.
7.For the Priest’s llips should preserve knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the mmessenger of the Lord of hosts.
8.But ye are gone out of the way: ye have caused many to fall by the Law: ye have broken the covenant of Leví, saith the Lord of hosts.
9.Therefore have I also made you to be despised, and vile before all the people, because ye kept not my ways, but have been partial in the Law.
10.Have we not all none father? hath not one God made us? why do we transgress every one against his brother, and break the covenant of oour fathers?
11.Judáh hath transgressed, and an abomination is committed in Israél and in Jerusalém: for Judáh hath defiled the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, and hath married the pdaughter of a strange god.
12.The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this: both the master and the servant out of the tabernacle of Jaakób, and him that qoffereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts.
13.And this have ye done again, & rcovered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with mourning: because the offering is no more regarded, neither received acceptably at your hands.
14.Yet ye say, sWherein? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and thy wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast transgressed: yet is she thy tcompanion, and the wife of thy ucovenant.
15.And did not xhe make one? yet had he yabundance of spirit: and wherefore one? because he sought a godlie zseed: therefore keep your selves in your aspirit, and let none trespass against the wife of his youth.
16.If thou hatest her, bput her away, saith the Lord God of Israél, yet he covereth cthe injury under his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore keep your selves in your spirt, & transgress not.
17.Ye have wearied the dLord with your words: yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that edoeth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and he deliteth in them. Or where is the God of fjudgement?
The Priests objected against the Prophet that he could not reprove them, but he must speak against the priesthood, and the office established of God by promise, but he shows, that the office is nothing slandered, when these vileness, and dongue are called by their own names.
He shows what were the two conditions of the covenant made with the tribe of Levi, on God’s part, that he would give them long life and felicity, and on their part, that they should faithfully serve him according to his word.
The Prophet accuses the ingratitude of the Jews toward God and man: for seeing they were all born of one father Abraham, and God had elected them to be his holy people, they ought neither to offend God nor their brethren.