King James Version · The Persian return
Malachi 2
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And now, O ye priests, this is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to , to give unto my name, saith of hosts, I will even send upon you, and I will your : yea, I have them already, because ye do not lay it to . Behold, I will corrupt , and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. And ye shall know that I have sent this unto you, that my might be with , saith of hosts. My was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. of truth was in his , and was not found in his : he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from . For the priest’s should keep knowledge, and they should seek at his : for he is of of hosts. But ye are departed out of ; ye have caused many to stumble at ; ye have corrupted of , saith of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in . Have we not all one ? hath not one created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning of our fathers? Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an is committed in Israel and in ; for Judah hath profaned the of which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange . will the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of , and him that offereth an unto of hosts. And this have ye done again, covering the of with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because hath been between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy . And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of . And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly . Therefore take heed to your , and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For , the of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth with his garment, saith of hosts: therefore take heed to your , that ye deal not treacherously. Ye have wearied with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of , and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the of ?
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.