1. THE BURDEN or oracle (the thing to be lifted up) of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi [My messenger].
2. I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, How and in what way have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says the Lord; yet I loved Jacob (Israel),
3. But [in comparison with the degree of love I have for Jacob] I have hated Esau [Edom] and have laid waste his mountains, and his heritage I have given to the jackals of the wilderness. [Rom. 9:13, 16.]
4. Though [impoverished] Edom should say, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places–thus says the Lord of hosts: They may build, but I will tear and throw down; and men will call them the Wicked Country, the people against whom the Lord has indignation forever.