Malachi 2:3
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and ye shall be taken away with it.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
See, I will have your arm cut off, and will put waste on your faces, even the waste from your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
Webster's Revision
Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
World English Bible
Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Behold, I will rebuke the seed for your sake, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your sacrifices; and ye shall be taken away with it.
Clarke's Malachi 2:3 Bible Commentary
Behold, I will corrupt your seed - So as to render it unfruitful. Newcome translates, - "I will take away from you the shoulder." This was the part that belonged to the priest, Leviticus 7:32; Deuteronomy 18:3.
Spread dung upon your faces - Instead of receiving a sacrifice at your hands, I will throw your offerings back into your faces. Here God shows his contempt for them and their offerings.
Barnes's Malachi 2:3 Bible Commentary
Lo, I will rebuke the seed for your sake - o, i. e., that it should not grow. He who worketh by His sustaining will all the operations of nature, would at His will withhold them. Neither priests nor Levites cultivated the soil; yet, since the tithes were assigned to them, the diminution of the harvest affected them. The meal-offering too was a requisite part of the sacrifice. (See also Joel 1:13; Joel 2:14.)
And spread dung upon your phaces, the dung o of your solemn feasts - , or, "of your sacrifices." It was by the law carried without the camp and burned with the animal itself. They had brought before the face of God maimed, unfitting sacrifices; they should have them cast back, with their refuse, upon them; "as a lord that rejecteth a gift, brought to him by his servant, casts it back in his time." "Of your sacrifices, not of Mine, for I am not worshiped in them: ye seek to please, not Me, but yourselves." So God said of Eli 1 Samuel 2:30, "them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."
And one shall take you away with it - , literally "to it." They should be swept away, as if they were an appendage to it, as God said 1 Kings 14:10, "I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, until all be gone." As are the offerings, so shall it be with the offerers.
Wesley's Malachi 2:3 Bible Commentary
2:3 I will corrupt - I will take away the prolific virtue and strength of it, that it shall bring forth no fruit. Spread dung - It is an expression of the greatest contempt.Of your solemn feasts - Your most solemn days and feasts, shall be as loathsome to me as dung, and shall make you, who offer them as unclean, and loathsome, as if I had thrown the dung of those sacrifices into your faces. Take you away - You shall be taken away with it, removed as equally unclean with the dung itself, equally fit to be cast out to the dunghill.