1. “Look! I am going to send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you are seeking will come suddenly to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you are taking pleasure—look!—he is about to come,” says Yahweh of hosts.
2. And who can endure the day of his coming? And who is the one who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, like launderers’ alkali.
3. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the children of Levi, and he will refine them like gold and like silver, and they will present to Yahweh offerings in righteousness.
4. And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to Yahweh, like in the days of old and like in former years.
5. “Then I will approach you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely, and against the oppressors of the hired worker with his wages, the widow and the orphan, and the abusers of the alien, and yet do not fear me,” says Yahweh of hosts.
6. “For I, Yahweh, have not changed, and you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.
7. From the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my rules, and have not kept them! Return to me and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of hosts, “but you say, ‘How shall we return?’
8. Will a human dare to rob God? Yet you are robbing me! And you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In the tithes and the contributions!