Malachi 1:2-5
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. (a)But you say, “How and in what way have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I loved Jacob (Israel);
3 but [in comparison with My love for Jacob] I have hated Esau (Edom), and I have made his mountains a wasteland, and have given his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness.”(A)
4 Though [impoverished] Edom says, “We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins.” Thus says the Lord of hosts, “They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the Wicked Territory, the people against whom the Lord is indignant forever.”
5 Your own eyes will see this and you will say, “The Lord is great and shall be magnified beyond the border of Israel!”(B)
Footnotes:
a.
Malachi 1:2: The first in a series of sarcastic questions spread throughout this book beginning with “But you say.”