¹ Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple. Behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts.

² And who shall be able to think of the day of his coming? and who shall stand to see him? for he is like a refining fire, and like the fuller's herb:

³ And he shall sit refining and cleansing the silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold, and as silver, and they shall offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice.

⁴ And the sacrifice of Juda and of Jerusalem shall please the Lord, as in the days of old, and in the ancient years.

⁵ And I will come to you in judgment, and will be a speedy witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and false swearers, and them that oppress the hireling in his wages; the widows, and the fatherless: and oppress the stranger, and have not feared me, saith the Lord of hosts.

⁶ For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed.

⁷ For from the days of your fathers you have departed from my ordinances, and have not kept them: Return to me, and I will Return to you, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have said: Wherein shall we Return?

⁸ Shall a man afflict God? for you afflict me. And you have said: Wherein do we afflict thee? in tithes and in firstfruits.

⁹ And you are cursed with want, and you afflict me, even the whole nation of you.

¹⁰ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and try me in this, saith the Lord: if I open not unto you the flood-gates of heaven, and pour you out a blessing even to abundance.

¹¹ And I will rebuke for your sakes the devourer, and he shall not spoil the fruit of your land: neither shall the vine in the field be barren, saith the Lord of hosts.

¹² And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, saith the Lord of hosts.

¹³ Your words have been unsufferable to me, saith the Lord.

¹⁴ And you have said: What have we spoken against thee? You have said: He laboureth in vain that serveth God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of hosts?

¹⁵ Wherefore now we call the proud people happy, for they that work wickedness are built up, and they have tempted God and are preserved.

¹⁶ Then they that feared the Lord spoke every one with his neighbour: and the Lord gave ear, and heard it: and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that fear the Lord, and think on his name.

¹⁷ And they shall be my special possession, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I do judgment: and I will spare them, as a man spareth his son that serveth him.

¹⁸ And you shall return, and shall see the difference between the just and the wicked: and between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.

¹ THE spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up.

² To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn:

³ To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify hint.

⁴ And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation.

⁵ And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandmen, and the dressers of your vines.

⁶ But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory.

⁷ For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them.

⁸ For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them.

⁹ And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

¹⁰ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.

¹¹ For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations.