1. And now, O priests, this command is to you.
2. If you will not hear, and if you will not set it on your heart to give glory to My name, says Jehovah of Hosts, then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. And indeed, I have cursed it, because you are not setting it on your heart.
3. Behold, I am rebuking your seed, and I will spread dung on your faces, the dung of your solemn feasts; and one will lift you up to it.
4. And you shall know that I have sent this command to you, to be My covenant with Levi, says Jehovah of Hosts.
5. My covenant with him was life and peace, and I gave them to him for fear; and he feared Me, and he is put in awe before My name.
6. The Law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips. In peace and in uprightness he walked with Me, and he turned many from iniquity.
7. For the lips of the priest should guard knowledge, and they should seek the Law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of Hosts.
8. But you have turned out of the way; you have caused many to stumble at the Law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says Jehovah of Hosts.
9. So I have also made you despised and low to all the people, just as you have not kept My ways, but are lifting up faces in the Law.
10. Is there not one father to us all? Has not one God created us? Why do we act deceitfully, each man with his brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers?
11. Judah has dealt treacherously, and has done an abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holy place of Jehovah, which He loves and has married a daughter of a foreign god.
12. Jehovah will cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does it, he waking and answering, or offering a grain offering to Jehovah of Hosts.
13. And this is a second thing you have done: covering the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping and groaning; yet not facing toward the grain offering, and taking it with delight from your hand.
14. Yet you say, On what cause? Because Jehovah has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously; and she is your companion and your covenant wife.
15. And has He not made you one? Yet the vestige of the Spirit is in him. And what of the one? He was seeking a seed of God. Then guard your spirit, and do not deal treacherously with the wife of your youth.
16. Jehovah, the God of Israel, says, He hates sending away, and to cover with violence on his garment, says Jehovah of Hosts. Then guard your spirit and do not act treacherously.
17. You have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet you say, In what have we wearied Him? When you say, Every evildoer is good in the eyes of Jehovah, and He delights in them; or, Where is the God of justice?