Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the waste from your feasts, and you will be carried off with it.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
- KJV Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
- NKJV “Behold, I will rebuke your descendants And spread refuse on your faces, The refuse of your solemn feasts; And one will take you away with it.
- NASB Behold, I am going to rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
- NLT I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God threatens severe humiliation on the priests, smearing the refuse of their own sacrifices on their faces and removing them in disgrace.
Overview
Using vivid, deliberately shocking imagery, God promises to disgrace the priests with the dung of the very feast offerings they corrupted. The judgment fits the crime: those who defiled holy worship will themselves be defiled. The passage underscores how seriously God regards the integrity of those who lead His people in worship.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Nah 3:6I will pelt you with filth and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.
- Mal 2:9“So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”
- Job 20:7he will perish forever, like his own dung; those who had seen him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
- Joel 1:17The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods; the storehouses are in ruins; the granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered away.
- Exod 29:14But burn the flesh of the bull and its hide and dung outside the camp; it is a sin offering.
- 1 Kgs 14:10Because of all this, behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both slave and free, in Israel; I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone!
- 1 Sam 2:29–30Why then do you kick at My sacrifice and offering that I have prescribed for My dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves with the best of all the offerings of My people Israel.’
- 1 Cor 4:13when we are slandered, we answer gently. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.
- Ps 83:10who perished at Endor and became like dung on the ground.
- 2 Kgs 9:36–37So they went back and told Jehu, who replied, “This is the word of the LORD, which He spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: ‘On the plot of ground at Jezreel the dogs will devour the flesh of Jezebel.
- Jer 8:2They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground.
- Luke 14:35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, and it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The messenger who prepares the way, the sun of righteousness rising with healing, and the Lord suddenly coming to his temple set the stage for the gospel that opens with John and Jesus.
How Malachi 2:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.