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[1]And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.
[2]If ye will not hear it, nor consider it in your heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not consider it in your heart.
[3]Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and cast dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts, and you shall be like unto it.
[4]And ye shall know, that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant, which I made with Levi, might stand, saith the Lord of hosts.
[5]My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave him fear, and he feared me, and was afraid before my name.
[6]The law of truth was in his mouth, and there was no iniquity found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.
[7]For the priest's lips should preserve knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
[8]But ye are gone out of the way: ye have caused many to fall by the law: ye have broken the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.
[9]Therefore have I also made you to be despised, and vile before all the people, because ye kept not my ways, but have been partial in the law.
[10]Have we not all one father? Hath not one God made us? Why do we transgress everyone against his brother, and break the covenant of our fathers?
[11]Judah hath transgressed, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: for Judah hath defiled the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange God.
[12]The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this: both the master and the servant out of the tabernacle of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts.
[13]And this have ye done again, and covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with mourning: because the offering is no more regarded, neither received acceptably at your hands.
[14]Yet ye say, Wherein? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast transgressed: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
[15]And did not he make one? Yet had he abundance of spirit: and wherefore one? Because he sought a godly seed: therefore keep yourselves in your spirit, and let none trespass against the wife of his youth.
[16]If thou hatest her, put her away, saith the Lord God of Israel, yet he covereth the injury under his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore keep yourselves in your spirit, and transgress not.
[17]Ye have wearied the Lord with your words: yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Everyone that doeth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them. Or where is the God of judgment?
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