1. The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
2. "I have loved you," says the Lord. But you say, "How have You loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the Lord. "Yet I have loved Jacob;
3. but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness."
4. Though Edom says, "We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins"; thus says the Lord of hosts, "They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever."