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.
5. Your own eyes shall see this and you shall say, The Lord is great and will be magnified over and beyond the border of Israel! [Isa. 34; 63:1-6; Jer. 49:7-22; Ezek. 25:12-14; Obad. 1.]
6. A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is the [reverent] fear due Me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise My name. You say, How and in what way have we despised Your name?