¹ See, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me: and the Lord, who you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, who you delight in: See, he will come, says the LORD of hosts. ² But who may abide the day of his coming ? and who will stand when he appears ? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers ' soap ³ And he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness. ⁴ Then will the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. ⁵ And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts. ⁶ For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. ⁷ Even from the days of your fathers you are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you said, In which will we return? ⁸ Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, In which have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. ¹⁰ Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be room enough [to receive it]. ¹¹ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he will not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither will your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, says the LORD of hosts. ¹² And all nations will call you blessed: for you will be a delightsome land, says the LORD of hosts. ¹³ Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken [so much] against you? ¹⁴ You have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? ¹⁵ And now we call the proud happy; yes, those work wickedness are set up; yes, those tempt God are even delivered. ¹⁶ Then those feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought on his name. ¹⁷ And they will be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. ¹⁸ Then will you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.