Malachi 2:15–17

⁴And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

⁵And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

⁶Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

¹⁴¶ Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

⁶But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

⁷For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;

⁸And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

²⁰And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

²¹And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

²²And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

²³And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

²⁴Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

¹¹Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

¹²Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.

¹⁴For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

¹⁸And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

⁴One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

⁵(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

¹⁰¶ Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

³All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;

⁶If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

⁴For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

⁴And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

³And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:

⁴But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.

⁵And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?

⁶And Abraham said unto him, Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again.

⁷¶ The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence.

²Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother.

³And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

⁴And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

²That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

¹⁴But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

²¹Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?

¹⁹For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

²⁸But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

²⁹And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

²⁵Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

²⁵Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.

²Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

²⁵Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.

⁷Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

⁴Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice.

⁷And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

⁴⁴And she say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman whom the Lord hath appointed out for my master’s son.

³⁴¶ And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:

³⁵Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.

⁴⁶And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

²²And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

²⁴And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.

²³¶ Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

³¶ The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

⁴And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

⁵And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

⁶Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

⁷They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

⁸He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

⁹And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

³¹It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

³²But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

²¶ And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.

³And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?

⁴And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.

⁵And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.

⁶But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

⁷For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;

⁸And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

⁹What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

¹⁰And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter.

¹¹And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.

¹²And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

¹⁸Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

¹³He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

¹WHEN a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

²And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.

³And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;

⁴Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

¹THUS saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.

⁶Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

²The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

³¶ That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

²⁰For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.

²⁴Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

³Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

⁴And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

¹¹Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

¹⁸¶ And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

¹⁸Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:

¹⁹That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

²⁰¶ Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

¹²And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

³Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

¹³Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.

⁴³Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.

¹²Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.

¹⁴Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

¹³And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

⁶Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.

¹⁷Shall even he that hateth right govern? and wilt thou condemn him that is most just?

¹⁷But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee.

⁶¶ A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?

⁷Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

¹⁹The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

³For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

⁵They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

⁶Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.

⁷Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

⁸They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily.

⁹They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.

¹⁰Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.

¹¹And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

¹²Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.

¹³Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

¹⁴For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.

¹⁵If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.

⁹When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

¹⁰Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

⁴He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

⁹Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.

³⁶My desire is that Job may be tried unto the end because of his answers for wicked men.

⁵For Job hath said, I am righteous: and God hath taken away my judgment.

⁶Should I lie against my right? my wound is incurable without transgression.

⁷What man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water?

⁸Which goeth in company with the workers of iniquity, and walketh with wicked men.

⁹For he hath said, It profiteth a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.

¹⁴¶ Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

¹³¶ Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?

¹⁴Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?

¹⁵And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

⁸¶ Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

¹¹He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

¹²Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.

¹³Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.