Malachi 2:14

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

Yet you ask,“Why?” The LORD is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law.

Additional Resources

Referenced Verses

  • Isa 54:6 : 6 “Indeed, the LORD will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.
  • Mal 3:5 : 5 “I will come to you in judgment. I will be quick to testify against those who practice divination, those who commit adultery, those who break promises, and those who exploit workers, widows, and orphans, who refuse to help the resident foreigner and in this way show they do not fear me,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
  • Gen 2:18 : 18 The LORD God said,“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”
  • Gen 31:50 : 50 If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one else is with us, realize that God is witness to your actions.”
  • 1 Sam 12:5 : 5 He said to them,“The LORD is witness against you, and his chosen king is witness this day, that you have not found any reason to accuse me.” They said,“He is witness!”
  • Prov 2:17 : 17 who leaves the husband from her younger days, and has ignored her marriage covenant made before God.
  • Prov 5:18-19 : 18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife you married in your youth– 19 a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be captivated by her love always.
  • Prov 30:20 : 20 This is the way of an adulterous woman: she has eaten and wiped her mouth and has said,“I have not done wrong.”
  • Eccl 9:9 : 9 Enjoy life with your beloved wife during all the days of your fleeting life that God has given you on earth during all your fleeting days; for that is your reward in life and in your burdensome work on earth.
  • Song 1:15 : 15 Mutual Praise and AdmirationThe Lover to His Beloved: Oh, how beautiful you are, my beloved! Oh, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves!
  • Judg 11:10 : 10 The leaders of Gilead said to Jephthah,“The LORD will judge any grievance you have against us, if we do not do as you say.”
  • Mal 3:8 : 8 Can a person rob God? You indeed are robbing me, but you say,‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and contributions!
  • Isa 58:3 : 3 They lament,‘Why don’t you notice when we fast? Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’ Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, you oppress your workers.
  • Jer 8:12 : 12 Are they ashamed because they have done such disgusting things? No, they are not at all ashamed! They do not even know how to blush! So they will die just like others have died. They will be brought to ruin when I punish them, says the LORD.
  • Jer 42:5 : 5 They answered Jeremiah,“May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do just as the LORD your God sends you to tell us to do.
  • Ezek 16:8 : 8 “‘Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing that you had reached the age for love. I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.
  • Mic 1:2 : 2 The Judge is Coming Listen, all you nations! Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth! The Sovereign LORD will act as a witness against you; the Lord will accuse you from his majestic palace.
  • Mal 1:6-7 : 6 The Sacrilege of Priestly Service“A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects his master. If I am your father, where is my honor? If I am your master, where is my respect? The LORD of Heaven’s Armies asks you this, you priests who make light of my name! But you reply,‘How have we made light of your name?’ 7 You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask,‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table of the LORD as if it is of no importance!
  • Mal 2:15 : 15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth.

Similar Verses (AI)

These verses are found using AI-powered semantic similarity based on meaning and context. Results may occasionally include unexpected connections.

  • Mal 2:15-17
    3 verses
    84%

    15No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth.

    16“I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel,“and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.“Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

    17Resistance to the Lord through Self-deceit You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say,“How have we wearied him?” Because you say,“Everyone who does evil is good in the LORD’s opinion, and he delights in them,” or“Where is the God of justice?”

  • Jer 3:20
    79%

    20But, you have been unfaithful to me, nation of Israel, like an unfaithful wife who has left her husband,” says the LORD.

  • Jer 3:1-2
    2 verses
    78%

    1“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife, he may not take her back again. Doing that would utterly defile the land. But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. So what makes you think you can return to me?” says the LORD.

    2“Look up at the hilltops and consider this. Where have you not been ravished? You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the wilderness. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.

  • Mal 2:13
    76%

    13You also do this: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

  • Isa 54:6
    76%

    6“Indeed, the LORD will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

  • Mal 2:8-11
    4 verses
    76%

    8You, however, have turned from the way. You have caused many to violate the law; you have corrupted the covenant with Levi,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

    9“Therefore, I have caused you to be ignored and belittled before all people to the extent to which you are not following after me and are showing partiality in your instruction.”

    10The Rebellion of the People Do we not all have one father? Did not one God create us? Why do we betray one another, in this way making light of the covenant of our ancestors?

    11Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the holy things that the LORD loves and has turned to a foreign god!

  • Prov 2:17
    75%

    17who leaves the husband from her younger days, and has ignored her marriage covenant made before God.

  • Jer 11:15
    75%

    15The LORD says to the people of Judah,“What right do you have to be in my temple, my beloved people? Many of you have done wicked things. Can your acts of treachery be so easily canceled by sacred offerings that you take joy in doing evil even while you make them?

  • Hos 2:2
    73%

    2Idolatrous Israel Will Be Punished Like a Prostitute Plead earnestly with your mother(for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior.

  • Jer 3:14
    73%

    14“Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the LORD,“for I am your true master. If you do, I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

  • Prov 5:18
    72%

    18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife you married in your youth–

  • Ezek 16:32
    72%

    32“‘Adulterous wife, who prefers strangers instead of her own husband!

  • Hos 6:7
    72%

    7Indictments Against the Cities of Israel and Judah At Adam they broke the covenant; Oh how they were unfaithful to me!

  • Jer 2:2
    72%

    2“Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem:‘This is what the LORD says:“I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

  • Num 5:20
    72%

    20But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had sexual relations with you….”

  • Ezek 16:58-61
    4 verses
    72%

    58You must bear your punishment for your obscene conduct and your abominable practices, declares the LORD.

    59“‘For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will deal with you according to what you have done when you despised your oath by breaking your covenant.

    60Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a lasting covenant with you.

    61Then you will remember your conduct, and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you.

  • Jer 2:20
    72%

    20The Lord Expresses His Exasperation at Judah’s Persistent Idolatry“Indeed, long ago you threw off my authority and refused to be subject to me. You said,‘I will not serve you.’ Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill and under every green tree, like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers.

  • Jer 5:7
    71%

    7The LORD asked,“How can I leave you unpunished, Jerusalem? Your people have rejected me and have worshiped gods that are not gods at all. Even though I supplied all their needs, they were like an unfaithful wife to me. They went flocking to the houses of prostitutes.

  • Jer 2:33
    71%

    33“My, how good you have become at chasing after your lovers! Why, you could even teach prostitutes a thing or two!

  • Jer 44:9
    71%

    9Have you forgotten all the wicked things that have been done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their wives, by you and your wives?

  • Jer 31:32
    71%

    32It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the LORD.

  • Num 5:12-13
    2 verses
    71%

    12“Speak to the Israelites and tell them,‘If any man’s wife goes astray and behaves unfaithfully toward him,

    13and a man goes to bed with her, for sexual relations, without her husband knowing it, and it is hidden that she has defiled herself, since there was no witness against her, nor was she caught–

  • Mal 3:13
    71%

    13Resistance to the Lord through Self-sufficiency“You have criticized me sharply,” says the LORD,“but you ask,‘How have we criticized you?’

  • Deut 22:14
    71%

    14accusing her of impropriety and defaming her reputation by saying,“I married this woman but when I approached her for marital relations I discovered she was not a virgin!”

  • Ezek 16:43
    71%

    43“‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth and have enraged me with all these deeds, I hereby repay you for what you have done, declares the Sovereign LORD. Have you not engaged in prostitution on top of all your other abominable practices?

  • Jer 3:7-8
    2 verses
    71%

    7Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did.

    8She also saw that, because of wayward Israel’s adulterous worship of other gods, I sent her away and gave her divorce papers. But still her unfaithful sister Judah was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods.

  • Deut 28:30
    70%

    30You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it.

  • Ezek 16:17
    70%

    17You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution with them.

  • Hos 2:7
    70%

    7Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say,“I will go back to my husband, because I was better off then than I am now.”

  • Hos 2:19-20
    2 verses
    70%

    19I will commit myself to you forever; I will commit myself to you in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and tender compassion.

    20I will commit myself to you in faithfulness; then you will acknowledge the LORD.”

  • Isa 50:1
    70%

    1This is what the LORD says:“Where is your mother’s divorce certificate by which I divorced her? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Look, you were sold because of your sins; because of your rebellious acts I divorced your mother.

  • Jer 2:29
    70%

    29“Why do you try to refute me? All of you have rebelled against me,” says the LORD.

  • Hos 4:15
    70%

    15Warning to Judah: Do Not Join in Israel’s Apostasy! Although you, O Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty! Do not journey to Gilgal! Do not go up to Beth Aven! Do not swear,“As surely as the LORD lives!”

  • 2 Sam 12:11
    70%

    11This is what the LORD has said:‘I am about to bring disaster on you from inside your own household! Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. He will go to bed with your wives in broad daylight!

  • Ezek 16:28
    70%

    28You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians because your desires were insatiable; you prostituted yourself with them and yet you were still not satisfied.

  • Jer 3:10
    70%

    10In spite of all this, Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” says the LORD.

  • Amos 7:17
    70%

    17“Therefore this is what the LORD says:‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets and your sons and daughters will die violently. Your land will be given to others and you will die in a foreign land. Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’”

  • 2 Sam 12:9
    70%

    9Why have you shown contempt for the LORD’s decrees by doing evil in my sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife to be your own wife! You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.