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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.

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Footnotes

  1. 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.
  2. 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.