¹³ And this is a second thing you do: you cover the altar of the Eternal One not with the blood of perfect sacrifices but with your own tears, weeping and groaning as if you were worshiping other gods because He does not accept the grain offering you present or receive it with delight. ¹⁴ Yet you ask, “Why won’t He accept our offerings?” It is because the Eternal One has been a witness to the way you have dealt deceitfully with the wife of your youth, although she is your companion and covenant wife, by going off with that foreign woman! ¹⁵ Has He not made you and your wife one? You belong to Him, body and spirit. And what does He seek from such a union? Godly children.^[a] So guard yourselves; be true to the wife of your youth, and stop being unfaithful.