² “I have loved you,”^(A) says the Lord.

Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” ^(B) This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob,

Disobedience of the Priests

⁶ “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of me?^(A) says the Lord of Armies to you priests, who despise my name.”

Yet you ask, “How have we despised your name?”

⁷ “By presenting defiled food on my altar.”

“How have we defiled you?” you ask.^(A)

When you say, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.”^(B)

Judgment at the Lord’s Coming

¹⁷ You have wearied the Lord^(A) with your words.

Yet you ask, “How have we wearied him?”

When you say, “Everyone who does what is evil is good in the Lord’s sight, and he is delighted with them,^(B) or else where is the God of justice?” ^(C)

Robbing God

⁷ “Since the days of your ancestors, you have turned from my statutes; you have not kept them.^(A) Return to me,^(B) and I will return to you,”^(C) says the Lord of Armies.

Yet you ask, “How can we return?”

⁸ “Will a man rob^(D) God? Yet you are robbing me!”

“How do we rob you?” you ask.

“By not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions.^{(E) 9} You are suffering under a curse, yet^[a] you—the whole nation—are still robbing me.