After the sons of Levi offer their offering in
righteousness, it will be pleasant for them and Jerusalem, as it was in the
past.
The Lord will come to them in judgement. It will be swift against the wicked – sorcerers,
adulterers, and false swearers. “They have spoken words, swearing falsely in
making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the
field” (Hosea 10:4).
Those the oppress those who work for them will face
judgement for their poor treatments of the
Workers. “They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder
the fatherless” (Psalms 94:6).
They will abuse widows and the fatherless. “They slay the widow and the stranger, and
murder the fatherless” (Psalms 10:14).
“A father of the fatherless, and a judge [OR defender] of
the widows, is God in his holy habitation” (Psalms 68:5).
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is
this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
“Let each company bear an equal proportion, according to the
dividend of their property, in taking the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and
the families of those who have gone into the army, that the cries of the widow
and the fatherless come not up into the ears of the Lord against this people” (D&C
136:8).
They will turn away the stranger and refuse to fear God. Who
is the stranger? “The word is frequently used to denote a man of non-Israelite
birth, resident in the promised land with the permission of the Israelite
authorities. There were various provisions in the law with regard to the
treatment of strangers, all of which were intended to secure for them justice
and fair treatment” (Bible Dictionary, Stranger).
“This passage from Malachi actually confirms seven of the
provisions in the biblical code of judicial justice in Exodus 23: God will come
near to his people in the judicial process (a desirable thing); but in that
setting he will not be tolerant of those who worship other gods or spirits,
those who are secretively deceptive or untrustworthy (such as adulterers or
perjurers), those who oppress the weak (including day workers, widows, and
orphans), and, ultimately, those who ‘turn aside the stranger,’ for they also
are children of the Lord of Hosts.”[1]
These judgements will happen because the Lord does not
change. “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing
mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the earth, and
lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they
shall not be ashamed that wait for me” (2 Nephi 6:7).
“And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in
the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be
the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth; but there is no God beside me,
and all things are present with me, for I know them all” (Moses 1:6).
Their fathers do not follow and keep His ordinances.
[1] The
Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon – The Ideal of Righteous Judgment,
Maxwell Institute website.
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