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¹ Beholde, I will send my messenger, and he shal prepare the way before mee: and the Lord whom ye seeke, shall suddenly come to his Temple: euen ye messenger of the Couenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. ² But who may abide the day of his comming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiners fire, and like fullers sope. ³ And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of siluer: and he shall purifie the sonnes of Leui, and purge them as gold & siluer, that they may offer vnto the Lord an offring in righteousnes. ⁴ Then shall the offerings of Iudah and Ierusalem bee pleasant vnto the Lord, as in the dayes of old, and as in former yeeres. ⁵ And I will come neere to you to iudgement, and I will bee a swift witnesse against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppresse the hireling in his wages, the widowe, and the fatherlesse, and that turne aside the stranger from his right, and feare not me, saith the Lord of hosts. ⁶ For I am the Lord, I change not: therefore ye sonnes of Iacob are not consumed.

⁷ Euen from the dayes of your fathers yee are gone away from mine ordinances, and haue not kept them: returne vnto me, and I will returne vnto you, saith the Lord of hosts: But ye said, Wherein shall we returne? ⁸ Wil a man rob God? yet ye haue robbed me. But ye say, Wherein haue we robbed thee? In tithes & offerings. ⁹ Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye haue robbed me, euen this whole nation. ¹⁰ Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be meate in mine house, & proue me now herewith, saith the Lord of hostes, if I will not open you the windowes of heauen, and powre you out a blessing, that there shall not be roome enough to receiue it. ¹¹ And I wil rebuke the deuourer for your sakes: and he shal not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shal your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. ¹² And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

¹³ Your words haue bin stout against me, saith the Lord, yet ye say, What haue we spoken so much against thee? ¹⁴ Ye haue said, It is vaine to serue God: and what profit is it, that we haue kept his ordinance, and that wee haue walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? ¹⁵ And now we call the proud happy: yea, they that worke wickednes are set vp, yea they that tempt God, are euen deliuered. ¹⁶ Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, & a booke of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, & that thought vpon his name. ¹⁷ And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make vp my iewels, and I wil spare them as a man spareth his owne sonne that serueth him. ¹⁸ Then shall yee returne and discerne betweene the righteous and the wicked, betweene him that serueth God, and him that serueth him not.