roc. 89.] PROPHECY OF MALACHI. 363 become miserable. The voice of roaring lions, because the fall of Jordan is become miserable : thus saith our Almighty Lord : They who possessed have murdered, and yet hath it not repented them, and they who sold them, have said, Our Lord is blessed and we have been enriched, and their pastors have suffered nothing concerning them. For which I will now bear no sparing hand over the inhabitants of the earth, saith our Lord." § 89. Hear ye moreover what the holy prophet Malachi denounceth unto you, saying : " Ye priests who despise my name, and have said : Wherein do we despise thy name ? in offering on mine altar polluted bread : and ye have said, Wherein have we polluted it ? In that ye have said : The table of our Lord is as nothing, and have despised such things as have been placed thereon ; because if ye bring what is blind for an offering, is it not evil ? If ye set and apply what is lame or languishing, is it not evil ? Offer therefore the same unto thy governor, if he will receive it, if he will accept of thy person, saith our Almighty Lord. And now do ye humbly pray before the countenance of your God, and earnestly beseech him (for in your hands have these things been committed) if happily he will accept of your persons." And again : "And out of your ravenous theft ye have brought in the lame and languishing, and brought it in as an offering. Shall I receive the same at your hands, saith our Lord ? Accursed is the deceitful man who hath in his flock one of the male kind, and yet making his vow offereth the feeble unto our Lord, because I am a mighty king, saith our Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles. And now unto you appertaineth this commandment, Ο ye priests, if ye will not hear, and resolve in your hearts to yield glory unto my name, saith our Lord of hosts, I will send upon you poverty, and accurse your blessings, because ye have not settled these things on your hearts. Behold I will stretch out my arm over ye, and disperse upon your countenances the dung of your solemnities." But that ye may in the meantime, with more zeal prepare your organs and instruments of mischief, to be converted into goodness, hearken ye (if there remain ever so little disposition to listen in your hearts) what he speaketh of a holy priest, saying : " My covenant of life and peace was with him (for histori