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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 3:6And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.
- Mal 2:9Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.
- Job 20:7Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?
- Joel 1:17The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
- Exod 29:14But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin offering.
- 1 Kgs 14:10Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
- 1 Sam 2:29–30Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?
- 1 Cor 4:13Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
- Ps 83:10Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
- 2 Kgs 9:36–37Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel:
- Jer 8:2And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.
- Luke 14:35It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
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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.