Malachi 2:10-16
New Catholic Bible
Profaned Marriage[a]
10 Do we all not have the one Father?
Has not one God created us?
Why then do we break faith with one another,
profaning the covenant of our ancestors?
11 Judah[b] has broken faith,
and an abominable thing has been done
in Israel and in Jerusalem.
By marrying the daughter of a foreign god,
Judah has profaned the Lord’s beloved sanctuary.
12 May the Lord banish from the tents of Jacob
any who do this,
and also deprive them of any witness or advocate
or someone to present offerings to the Lord of hosts.
You Betray the Woman of Your Youth[c]
13 And this you are to do as well:
you must cover the altar of the Lord
with tears, with weeping and moaning,
because at present he refuses to consider your offering
or to accept it with satisfaction from your hand.
14 If you ask the reason why,
it is because the Lord stands as witness
between you and the wife of your youth
with whom you have broken faith,
even though she is your partner
and your wife by a solemn covenant.
15 Did not the one God make her,
both flesh and spirit?
And what does the one God require
but God-given offspring?
Therefore, you must safeguard your own life,
and let none of you be unfaithful
to the wife of your youth.
16 For I hate divorce,
says the Lord, the God of Israel,
as well as covering one’s garment with injustice,
says the Lord of hosts.
Therefore, have respect for your own life,
and do not be unfaithful.
Footnotes
- Malachi 2:10 What importance does marriage any longer have in the setting of the covenant if it becomes the accepted thing to take an idolatrous wife or have ready recourse to divorce? The prophet is angered by these practices.
- Malachi 2:11 Judah: signifies here all who belong to the people of God. Centuries-long experience (beginning with Solomon: 1 Ki 11:4) had shown how dangerous marriages with foreign women were: these women, holding tightly to their various forms of worship, drew their husbands into them.
- Malachi 2:13 Like all the peoples of the time, Israel allowed a husband to repudiate his wife (Mt 24:1-4). The prophet is more demanding: in his eyes, marriage is a sacred bond that cannot be broken without going against the intention of the Creator (Gen 2:24). This passage leads toward the ideal that Jesus will propose (Mt 19:1-9).
