Malachi 2:17The MessageYou make God tired with all your talk. “How do we tire him out?” you ask. By saying, “God loves sinners and sin alike. God loves all.” And also by saying, “Judgment? God’s too nice to judge.” See the chapter |
34 Cross References
Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track. You shut God out and work behind the scenes, Plotting the future as if you knew everything, acting mysterious, never showing your hand. You have everything backward! You treat the potter as a lump of clay. Does a book say to its author, “He didn’t write a word of me”? Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it, “She had nothing to do with this”?
“But you didn’t pay a bit of attention to me, Jacob. You so quickly tired of me, Israel. You wouldn’t even bring sheep for offerings in worship. You couldn’t be bothered with sacrifices. It wasn’t that I asked that much from you. I didn’t expect expensive presents. But you didn’t even do the minimum— so stingy with me, so closefisted. Yet you haven’t been stingy with your sins. You’ve been plenty generous with them—and I’m fed up.
So Isaiah told him, “Then listen to this, government of David! It’s bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired. So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She’ll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us). By the time the child is twelve years old, able to make moral decisions, the threat of war will be over. Relax, those two kings that have you so worried will be out of the picture. But also be warned: God will bring on you and your people and your government a judgment worse than anything since the time the kingdom split, when Ephraim left Judah. The king of Assyria is coming!”
You are right, O God, and you set things right. I can’t argue with that. But I do have some questions: Why do bad people have it so good? Why do con artists make it big? You planted them and they put down roots. They flourished and produced fruit. They talk as if they’re old friends with you, but they couldn’t care less about you. Meanwhile, you know me inside and out. You don’t let me get by with a thing! Make them pay for the way they live, pay with their lives, like sheep marked for slaughter. How long do we have to put up with this— the country depressed, the farms in ruin— And all because of wickedness, these wicked lives? Even animals and birds are dying off Because they’ll have nothing to do with God and think God has nothing to do with them. * * *
“You left me, remember?” God’s Decree. “You turned your back and walked out. So I will grab you and hit you hard. I’m tired of letting you off the hook. I threw you to the four winds and let the winds scatter you like leaves. I made sure you’ll lose everything, since nothing makes you change. I created more widows among you than grains of sand on the ocean beaches. At noon mothers will get the news of their sons killed in action. Sudden anguish for the mothers— all those terrible deaths. A mother of seven falls to the ground, gasping for breath, Robbed of her children in their prime. Her sun sets at high noon! Then I’ll round up any of you that are left alive and see that you’re killed by your enemies.” God’s Decree.
“Do I hear you saying, ‘That’s not fair! God’s not fair!’? “Listen, Israel. I’m not fair? You’re the ones who aren’t fair! If a good person turns away from his good life and takes up sinning, he’ll die for it. He’ll die for his own sin. Likewise, if a bad person turns away from his bad life and starts living a good life, a fair life, he will save his life. Because he faces up to all the wrongs he’s committed and puts them behind him, he will live, really live. He won’t die.
He said, “The guilt of Israel and Judah is enormous. The land is swollen with murder. The city is bloated with injustice. They all say, ‘God has forsaken the country. He doesn’t see anything we do.’ Well, I do see, and I’m not feeling sorry for any of them. They’re going to pay for what they’ve done.”
“Begin by being honest. Do honest people rob God? But you rob me day after day. “You ask, ‘How have we robbed you?’ “The tithe and the offering—that’s how! And now you’re under a curse—the whole lot of you—because you’re robbing me. Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don’t open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers.” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
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