King James Version · The Persian return
Malachi 1
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The burden of the word of to Israel by . I have loved you, saith . Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not ’s brother? saith : yet I loved , And I hated , and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of . Whereas saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom hath for ever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, will be magnified from the border of Israel. A son honoureth his , and a servant his master: if then I be a , where is mine ? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine ; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for , is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith of hosts. And now, I you, beseech that he will be unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle on mine for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith of hosts, neither will I accept an at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the ; and in every place shall be offered unto my name, and a pure : for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an : should I accept this of your hand? saith . But be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.