Maleakhi 1:8

1:8 For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer the lame and sick, ¹  is that not wrong as well? Indeed, try offering them ²  to your governor! Will he be pleased with you ³  or show you favor?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 3:7

3:7 From the days of your ancestors you have ignored ⁴  my commandments ⁵  and have not kept them! Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord who rules over all. “But you say, ‘How should we return?’

[1:8]  ¹ sn Offerings of animals that were lame or sick were strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law (see Deut 15:21).

[1:8]  ² tn Heb “it” (so NAB, NASB). Contemporary English more naturally uses a plural pronoun to agree with “the lame and sick” in the previous question (cf. NIV, NCV).

[1:8]  ³ tc The LXX and Vulgate read “with it” (which in Hebrew would be הֲיִרְצֵהוּ, hayirtsehu, a reading followed by NAB) rather than “with you” of the MT (הֲיִרְצְךָ, hayirtsÿkha). The MT (followed here by most English versions) is to be preferred because of the parallel with the following phrase פָנֶיךָ (fanekha, “receive you,” which the present translation renders as “show you favor”).

[3:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “turned aside from.”

[3:7]  ⁵ tn Or “statutes” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “decrees”; NLT “laws.”