World English Bible · The Persian return
Malachi 3
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"Behold, I send , and he will prepare before me! , whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Behold, of , whom you , is coming!" of Armies. "But who can the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a , and like launderers' soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the , and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to in . Then the of Judah and will be pleasant to as in the days of old and as in ancient years. I will come near to you to . I will be a swift against the sorcerers, against the , against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the , and , and who deprive the of justice, and don't fear me," of Armies. "For I, , don't change; therefore you, sons of , are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," of Armies. "But you say, 'How shall we return?' Will a man rob ? Yet you rob me! But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In and . You are with the ; for you rob me, even this whole nation. Bring the whole into the , that there may be food in my house, and me now in this," of Armies, "if I will not open you the windows of , and pour you out a , that there will not be enough room for. I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your cast its fruit before its time in the field," of Armies. "All nations shall call you , for you will be a delightful land," of Armies. "Your words have been harsh against me," . "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against you?' You have said, 'It is to ,' and 'What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before of Armies? Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they , and escape.' Then those who feared spoke one with another; and listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared and who his name. They shall be mine," of Armies, "my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall return and discern between , between him who serves and him who doesn't him.
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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.