⁵ “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these seventy years, did you really fast for me?^{(A) 6} When you eat and drink, don’t you eat and drink simply for yourselves?^(B)

Disobedience of the Priests

⁶ “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of me?^(A) says the Lord of Armies to you priests, who despise my name.”

Yet you ask, “How have we despised your name?”

⁷ “By presenting defiled food on my altar.”

“How have we defiled you?” you ask.^(B)

When you say, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.”^(C)

⁸ “When you present a blind animal for sacrifice, is it not wrong? And when you present a lame or sick animal, is it not wrong?^(D) Bring it to your governor! Would he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Armies.